


225K

by Cards_Slash



Series: soulmates and criminals [1]
Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Kidnapping, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-23 22:02:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2557289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cards_Slash/pseuds/Cards_Slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was supposed to be easy: kidnap the lawyer, hold him for ransom and then Altair's baby brother would be free and far away from this stupid life.  But the lawyer he kidnapped was not only his soul mate but the biggest stubborn pain in the ass Altair had ever met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I swear, this will all turn out good in the end. I SWEAR IT WILL NOT BE LIKE THE LAST SOUL MATE STORY.

Altair had gotten used to the taste of blood in his mouth, the red-streaked splatter of it spread in the dingy yellow basin of the sink and the persistent ache of a swollen jaw. It had been a symptom of living for so long it was hard to remember what his life had been like before. He did not spare a second glance at the mirror over the sink (guess what he’d see: swollen jaw, split lip, fresh bruises) but turned toward the sound of the door opening. 

“Desmond,” he snarled as he shoved himself away from the sink. The door banged into his sore left side. His elbow knocked against the impossibly narrow hall as he went, and Desmond in the cramped space of the living room was humming to himself as he plucked an apple out of a brown sack of (stolen) groceries. “Where have you been?” Altair shouted at him. 

Desmond looked at him with wide-wide eyes and a white shock the exact moment he realized what happened while he was gone. Or maybe when he realized who was to blame for it. His back turned toward the wall in a strategic attempt to protect himself but he put both hands up in surrender. “Look, I know what you’re thinking…”

“You know what I’m _thinking_?” Altair shouted at him. “How can you _know_ what anyone is _thinking_ when you haven’t got a brain?” He shoved Desmond against the wall with his hand in a fist poised in mid strike over his face. 

“Ok,” Desmond said. The apple dropped to the floor and he bent his knees to get shorter the same way he had since he came to ruin Altair’s life at six-years-old. “Look, I don’t know what they think happened but I did not—”

“Yes you did!” Altair shouted. He slammed his fist against the wall where Desmond’s head had been. His other hand pulled the idiot forward by the shirt and shook him (a wasted cause, surely). “Stop thinking with your dick, Desmond! The girl isn’t even your soul mate. She is _playing you_.”

“No she’s not,” Desmond snapped back. Because he was twenty-one years old with big eyes for pretty girls and no sense anywhere in the whole of his body. “You don’t know everything!”

“I know that because of you and your _big mouth_ , I have the _distinct_ pleasure of making up for it.” The words were acid on his tongue the way the oversized assholes grabbing at him had been humiliating burns at his arms. Altair didn’t hate anyone the way he hated the old man that sat behind the monstrous desk with a calm-calm-voice telling him exactly what he-was-going-to-do. “So, this is what you’re going to do, Desmond. You’re going to get your shit and you’re going to get the fuck out of this city and you are _not_ coming back.”

Desmond was shoulders-against-the-wall, head tipped to the side, mouth sliding open to plead his case. There were red spots on his white face the very same way there had been since Altair had been gifted with the joy of taking care of the naïve little snot. “Altair,” he said helplessly.

“No,” Altair said. He straightened up, and the motion pulled at the bruises on his ribs. “You’re out. Even if I don’t end up in jail for this, I’m done.”

“How bad is it?” Desmond asked. 

“Bad,” Altair said. “Now go pack your shit. I’ve already called for your ride.” He let go of Desmond and stepped away from him. He expected anger, perhaps denial but not the compulsive way that Desmond hugged him (as useless as it was) before he shuffled out of the room.

\--

Malik was two-thirds the way through an elaborate fantasy of sticking the tip of his gold-plated pen through his eye-socket when a lull in the troublesome shouting allowed just enough quiet to hear the shuffle-shuffle of little feet on tile. He turned away from the dissolving marriage, the opposing counsel, and the freshly minted soul mate looking smugly victorious. There was a little girl standing in the doorway with crooked pigtails and eighty dollar pajamas. Her little hands were gripping the voluminous skirts of some stuffed cat-bear hybrid. Her eyes were wide-and-blue, her little mouth hanging open in aghast horror. 

There was no place for children in the divorce business. He rolled out of the overstuffed arm chair he’d been occupying during the unnecessary shouting and put his finger to his lips to stall the well-meaning advice from his partner. Shaun’s face was furious, tight-lipped and washed out but he kept his silence and turned his attention back to dealing with the parents. Malik put his hand out to the little girl and she took it because the alternative was listening to her Mother’s shrill-shrieking voice screaming, “ _you promised! You promised me forever!_ ”

Down the hall, past a dozen doors, Malik found the kitchen and the sad lady sitting at the tiny table in the corner reading the morning paper with her cheek in her palm and a cup of tea quietly steaming at her elbow. The little girl (Annabella or something of the sort) ran to her and threw herself bodily at the woman who only barely caught her. “Awake are you?” the woman said. Her hand cupped over the child’s forehead before her lips brushed across the same skin chasing after some sign of a fever recently passed.

“She found her way to the war room,” Malik said. 

The woman looked up at him and the smile that had been creeping across her face went flat again. Everything about her demeanor changed instantly as if color itself was draining out of her face until all that remained was cool hatred. “I would have expected someone of your occupation to exploit that mistake.”

Malik stood straight and shrugged. “Everything is going to change now; everything that has been true is crumbling. She’s going to see the death of free will and true love. There’s really no purpose in having her watch the autopsy as well. Keep her in here.” He turned to go (sure that his point had been made) and was all the way to the swinging door of the kitchen before the woman’s voice interrupted him.

“You’re a strange one to make a stand against the soul mate law,” she said (benignly). “Aren’t you making a few hundred thousand dollars off this _autopsy_?” 

Malik felt a smirk cross his face (an old habit) and said, “More than a few. Keep the girl away from the war room.” Then he let himself out and down the long hall, around the corner and into the room where the (former) wife had collapsed into a chair with tears on her face. Her husband, so capable of loving her with such inspired devotion just two weeks ago, was looking down at her with a disdainful sneer. “What’d I miss?” Malik whispered to Shaun.

“I think she’s done,” Shaun whispered back. “She wants the child.”

“That will never happen,” Malik said. Not because the girl wouldn’t be better off with her mother but because no judge in the world would have sided against soul mates. The father and his pleased-looking new soul mate were more fit to care for the child based completely on the fact that they’d been (un)lucky enough to find one another. He slapped on his lawyer’s smile as he stood up and cleared his throat. Opposing council was shame-faced and beaten as he got to his feet, conceding every demand with every bit of his body. “Well, now that we’ve gotten emotions out of the way, I suggest we get to work.”

\--

Altair had been kept clean (so the old man liked to tell him): no scars on his face, no drugs, and no unfortunate disfiguring accidents. He hadn’t been permitted to go into personal companionship (no matter how much more it paid in the end) or marketing and sales (those poor drug pedaling souls often picked up by police and rivals). It left him with a very specific skill set the old man could exploit and the rare ability to slip out of the dank side-city and walk on the scrubbed-clean sidewalks of the metropolis unnoticed. 

“Your face,” the old man had said to him when he was six-and-a-half (newly orphaned). His thumb was a tight knob of bone against his soft chin and his face was a sick approval. “You could be one of them.” His own face was pock-marked and gray, dirty by virtue of the filth they lived in. 

So Altair was outfitted with a fine (enough) suit and sent across a border that almost nobody crossed (without money changing hands and men with too much money sating sick desires with purchased companions). He had made sure his face was clean enough and the fading bruises were covered well enough that nobody would look at him twice. His target was a faded photograph stuffed into his inside pocket, a memorized name and a list of locations. 

He picked the escalator in the city center first, sat on the fine-wooden-benches at the bottom of it watching the pretty ladies in fur coats and the upright men in fitted suits passing him by. There were lower-class citizens mixed in here and there: worker bees doing circles around men with money. A courier and a delivery man that ducked their heads and weaved in and out of traffic. 

Altair was patient (if nothing else). He waited two hours before the target stepped onto the escalator at the top and then he was on his feet, stepping onto the moving stairs at the bottom. He looked at the man’s pitch-dark hair as he stared down at the glowing screen of his phone-or-tablet (or God-only-knew-what). He was dressed in a black suit that was tailored to his broad shoulders and his flat waist. He was taller in person than Altair had been led to believe but hardly worth a moment’s worry. It was a simple enough matter to reach across the space between the up-and-down escalators and slap his arm hard enough to knock the device out of his hand. It fell with a clatter and the buzzing sound of the moving steps were interrupted only by a moment by the grate-and-grind of something stuck in the track. Altair turned to look over his face and grinned at his frown. 

As soon as he got to the top he did a series of quick stretches, picked a position that afforded him the illusion of having walked away. The man was running up the stationary stairs (so rarely used) with his face in a scowl and a shout caught halfway out of his mouth. Altair looked right at him, saw the dark-brown of his eyes and smiled at him again. Then he turned and _ran_.

\--

Malik ran after the asshole as fast as his slick-lawyer shoes would allow. The crowd at the top of the escalator was light in the blank time of the early afternoon. There were only a few people to avoid (or crash into) but the grinning nuisance wove his way through the few people that crossed their path with expert slippery-stealth. It took Malik a minute or three before he realized that he was being led somewhere. It wasn’t even his own realization but a truth that stopped-short in front of him in as literal a sense as possible. The asshole that had destroyed his phone (and grinned at his face) skidded to a stop and turned with the grace of a professional dancer, put two hands out and caught Malik by the shoulders to drag him one-two-steps to the side. They didn’t fall into, but step over a series of short bushes that kept pedestrians out of the clutch of trees beyond them. 

“Nothing personal,” the man said just before there was a prick of pain in his neck and a spiraling sense of gravity dropping out from under him. The last thing he felt was a hand on the back of his neck and the last thing he saw was the sun through the whispering green leaves of the trees.

Then he woke up, like being slapped across the face, with a sense of disorientation matched only by the painful lurch in his chest. It was a pathetic twist of agony akin to the heartbreak of loss that made a throaty moan rattle out of his chest. He shook his head, tried to clear his vision and managed only to discern the uncertain shapes of his own living room all around him. A cheerful fire was burning not too far in front of him and he tried to lift himself out of the chair (to shake off the slurry feeling in his skull) and found that he’d been crudely taped in place. Two empty rolls of (duct tape?) were on the floor not far from his feet and in the plush armchair (stained with grape juice) was the jerk who had destroyed his phone. 

Malik wanted to demand what the hell he wanted, how the hell they’d gotten here and just what the fuck was wrong with him but the man leaned forward and put a hand across the back of his. The instant feeling of calm that was conveyed with that simple touch was the most devastating thing he had ever felt. He sneered at his own hand with a groan of disappointment (in everything). 

But the man was smirking at him, “it gets worse. You’ve got twenty four hours to give me two hundred thousand dollars or I have to kill you.” Every word was dripping with the irony inherent in the situation. A petty fucking criminal had taped him to a chair and fate had decided to compound the insult by making them soul mates.

“That’s rich,” Malik said. The man nodded and then sat back again, pulled the brief contact of his hand away. The resulting feeling of vertigo was instantaneous but momentary. The man was on his feet before Malik’s vision cleared. “What’s your name?”

“Altair,” he said. “Are you married?” He motioned to the photos on the mantel over the cheery fire. 

“No.”

“So she’s a girlfriend? Breeder? Isn’t that something people like you do? Form mutually beneficial arrangements like that?” He picked up one of the pictures to look at it more closely.

“I doubt she would appreciate being referred to as a breeder, but yes we have a child together.” He wiggled in the chair and managed to do nothing but move the chair a few centimeters. The tape was around his chest, his forearms and his legs. The chair was one of the wooden ones from the living room—built sturdy—so there was no hope of snapping it to kindling by toppling it to the side. 

“Son?” Altair said.

“Yes.” Malik tightened his hands into fists and looked around the room for any brighter ideas about regaining his freedom. There was nothing at all on hand to cut through the layers of sticky gray tape holding him in place. “You won’t make it twenty four hours, you know. Someone is going to find us.”

“Her?” Altair asked. He turned the picture so Malik could see Maria’s face. His eyebrows rose up toward his hairline as a sarcastic smirk spread across his face. “No, I didn’t think so. It’s nice of you to keep pictures of her around for the boy—I assume you have him all the time?”

“I’m not gay,” Malik said. It wasn’t relevant to the conversation they were having but it seemed relevant to the greater whole. “What about you?”

Altair set the photograph down and rubbed at the corner of his mouth—reddish and bruised where he’d wiped away concealer. There was a scar across his mouth that was only barely visible in the full light. For a criminal—obviously from one of the side cities—he was remarkably well kept. “I am now.”

“Not all soul mates are sexual,” Malik said.

Altair actually laughed at him. He picked up a beer from the glass table next to the plush chair and threw himself back into it. “Now that is funny. Remember that brother and sister from France? The sister was adopted? There was a big deal in the courts because legally brothers aren’t allowed to marry sisters? How many kids do they have now?”

“That doesn’t prove that all soul mates have to be sexual,” Malik said.

“It doesn’t but it makes a compelling argument. So, how about you pay the ransom and we can all move on with our lives?”

It was Malik’s turn to laugh this time. “You expect me to pay you a ransom? You honestly think that I’m going to give you—how much was it?”

“Two hundred thousand dollars.”

“Two hundred thousand dollars and then what? You think I won’t turn you into the police? You think that you’ll just walk away?”

Altair took a long drink of the beer and smacked his lips together with an exaggerated sound of appreciation. Then he smiled. “Twenty four hours, man.” Then he got up and walked out of the room.

\--

Altair dropped the bottle into the tall green trash can in the kitchen and spread his hands across the polished granite counter top. His forehead was hot against the chill of the glass-front cabinets as a flush spread like a fever across his skin. He clenched his hands into fists and pressed his knuckles hard against the unforgiving surface in an attempt to force a sense of calm that he couldn’t hope to feel for himself.

That first split second after his hand had touched Malik Al-Sayf (lawyer extraordinaire and son of an elite, snobbish family full of soul mates and CEOs) the whole of his body had felt as if it had been set on _fire_. His heartbeat had gone from a healthy strum to a throbbing crescendo and the blinding realization that he’d just drugged his fucking soul mate had sank slowly-but-surely straight through his body. Common sense should have sent him running for the hills but obligation had kept him trapped in the close confines of the poor cover the trees provided. Transporting Malik to the car Altair was provided hadn’t been as difficult as trying to see through the confusing fever of his body loudly complaining about how he was not touching his one-true-beloved. 

“Fuck,” he growled at the countertop. He shoved himself away from it and pulled open the massive fridge. He plucked another beer and a covered dish of something with rice that smelled divine. The bottom of the dish declared it to be microwave safe so he slipped it into the microwave as he leaned against the counter and finished drinking the beer. 

He was holding his own soul mate for ransom. His soul mate who had a son. His soul mate whose house was bigger than half of the apartment complexes Altair had lived in as a child. It was a sobering, ridiculous thought that nagged at him until the phone in his pocket started ringing. The number was listed as ‘private’ when he looked at it and then slid his thumb across the front. He held it to his ear and said, “yes?”

“Were you successful?” the old man asked.

“I have him,” Altair said.

“And the money?”

“I’ll have it soon,” Altair said. “Twenty four hours at the most.”

The old man made a noise in his throat. “Make sure that you do. Just because you think you got your brother out doesn’t mean I can’t get him back in, Altair.”

He closed his eyes and bit back every-terrible-thing he wanted to spit into the man’s face. He had to swallow back the thickening anger in his throat to say, “I’ll get it.” Then the old man disconnected and Altair slammed the phone against the counter.

From the other room, his unhappy prisoner shouted, “jealous girlfriend?”

Altair sighed at the empty beer and leaned forward far enough to pull the fridge open for another. 

\--

Thinking was easier without the physical evidence of his sudden soul-based connection staring at him (demanding money). Malik took complete stock of the situation. Altair was clearly working for someone, very obviously someone he did not actually like. Altair had unresolved feelings about someone he felt responsible for (as evidenced by his lingering over family photos). He also very clearly did not have positive feelings toward wealth, soul mates or Malik himself. 

Altair did not appear to be armed but he was strong enough to carry Malik around and tape him to a chair. He also looked like he was recently on the wrong end of a beating. 

All in all, it shouldn’t be that difficult to make him see reason by applying pressure on the right points. The fact that they were now bound for an eternity—legally and spiritually—while a useful bullet point on the list of his arguments did not seem likely to sway his young criminal friend.

“How old are you?” Malik shouted.

“Twenty six,” Altair shouted as he came back to the room. He was carrying a plate of last night’s dinner like a professional waitress with a bottle of water under one arm and another two hanging from between his fingers. He lowered one of the bottles down for Malik to close his hand around and then set the other two on the glass table. “How old are you?”

“Twenty nine,” Malik said. “Brothers or sisters?”

“Younger.” He sat down and pulled both of his legs up to cross in front of him in the chair. “You?”

“Younger brother. Why two hundred thousand?” Malik asked. He shifted as best he could with all the tape. “I’m not that well versed with ransom demands but it seems like there’s probably an easier way to get the money. Drug trafficking?” Altair just stared at him dispassionately as he spoke. “Grand theft auto? Prostitution?”

Altair laughed at that. “Not a whore, man.”

“Because this is better.”

“How old is your kid?”

Malik ground his teeth together because he had been doing an excellent job forgetting about Tazim (and about the feverish feeling of being close to but not touching his soul mate). He stared at the floor under his feet for a second until he was sure he could say anything without making it into a ridiculous half-thought-out-threat. “Five,” is what he said. “Why two hundred thousand dollars?”

Altair was too busy shoveling the food into his face with rabid eagerness to bother answering him. Bits of rice were falling away from his lips and sticking to his shirt. When he finished chewing and drinking half a bottle of water, he cleared his throat to say: “it covers my debt.”

“Your debt?”

“Yes.”

“Drugs? Gambling? Expensive trophy wife? Wine habit?” 

Altair licked his lips with a vague wince when his tongue ran across the split on the left side. “It’s really hard not to answer your questions.”

“That’s because we’re brand new soul mates. That impulse you have to give me everything I want is the root cause of seventy five percent of my business. Business men with wives—or husbands—find their soul mate and suddenly the lives they’d built with the person they loved yesterday don’t mean a damn thing. You should see the suckers they turn into, forking out cash to their precious new soul mates. Answering my questions is relative cheap and acceptable. Just imagine if I asked you to get me a jet or a flock of geese.” Malik hadn’t handled the case with the flock of geese but it was a popular tale around the practice. 

“Give me two hundred thousand dollars,” Altair said.

“No,” Malik retorted. He looked at the water bottle in his hand with a sudden desperate thirst. Altair noticed and just looked at him. There was no joy at his discomfort but there was a definite justified satisfaction about it. When he’d had his fill of looking, he pulled a straw out of his pocket and leaned forward to open the bottle. He held it, straw-end-first, up to Malik’s mouth. With Altair leaning over him, the unbuttoned top of his shirt gaped open in such a way to show the rainbow of colors patterned across the bony prominence of his clavicle.

“Why won’t you give me the money? You have it.” 

“The irony is that if you hadn’t drugged me and tied me up, I would have given it to you. I’m your soul mate. As soon as we’re properly certified as such, half of what I have is yours.” He licked his lips and watched as Altair screwed the cap back on the bottle of water. 

“Is the kid coming home tonight?” Altair asked. 

Malik-wasn’t-thinking-about-that. He clenched his teeth against the soft-focus of Altair’s false-sympathy. All of the anger in the world was useless against two rolls of duct tape. He was foaming up hateful threats that died in his throat when Altair waved his hand in the air like banishing the notion. 

“Do you have someone to call to take the kid? Not that I wouldn’t love to meet him, but I don’t think this is the sort of first impression I’d want to make.” He went behind Malik and came back with the house phone. “Well?”

“How noble,” Malik said. But he told Altair the number to dial and he used his harassed-at-work voice to convince Maria he needed her to take Tazim for the night. He didn’t oversell it but managed to make her angry enough there was no way she’d bother coming by his house to pick up clothes for Tazim. She had a closet full of extras for days like this anyway. “Have him call me,” Malik said. Maria spit a curse at him but agreed. 

\--

The house was uncomfortably large. There were rooms and rooms of empty space filled with nice furniture and no soul. Altair went through Malik’s office idly, picking at the stacks of papers and running his fingers across the cigar boxes. They were stacked on a shelf in the corner but largely untouched. An array of expensive brandies were arranged on a long table with a series of upside down glasses at the ready.

Framed diplomas took up an entire wall. There were shelves full of heavy law books and a massive desk without a single thing out of place. Altair knocked over a small container of paperclips (half expected to hear a scream of pain when he did) and then left the room to find another. 

Malik was shouting, “you never answered me!”

“I don’t intend to,” Altair said back. He found the stairs. The upstairs was as oversized as the downstairs. There were six bedrooms and two bathrooms (not including the en suites). All of them were dressed for use but only two of them were actually used. The boy’s room was a litter of toys and papers half-put away. Whatever hysterical cleanliness plagued his father, the boy obvious was comfortable living in disarray. 

Malik’s room was dominated by monstrously large bed. Everything was put exactly in its place—up to and including the dozens of watches set out for display. His closet was an endless hang of fine suits with a sea of shining shoes beneath it. Altair pulled open his dresser drawers and found everything painfully folded in exact squares. 

“How are you real?” Altair mumbled to the carefully folded socks. Then he pushed the drawer closed and headed back down stairs. Malik was sitting in the chair (of course he was) looking bored by the whole ordeal. “Two hundred thousand dollars?”

“Why?” Malik said in return.

“If I tell you why I need the money does it raise the likelihood that you’re going to pay it?”

Malik’s impassive face was as much an answer as the flat tone in which he said, “probably not.” He followed it up with, “but I’m going to inherit your problems.”

\--

There it was, the first little crack in Altair’s impressive armor. Whoever had used the man for a punching bag hadn’t managed to do more than scratch the surface. But the (insincere) offer of shared responsibility had shaken something loose. Altair didn’t frown at him, didn’t move toward or away from him but straightened like a cat bristling in fury. 

“No you aren’t,” Altair said. 

“Well you’re smarter than I thought.” Malik wiggled in the chair, tried to wipe away the flush of sweat brought on by the tape or the instinctive impulse to keep Altair close enough to see and touch at all times. Losing sight of him had shaken Malik’s resolve (for a moment), struck a blow against the wall of indifference he had been constructing against the urge to give Altair whatever he wanted. “Why do you need the money?”

“Why did you have a kid?”

“Because I wanted a child and I didn’t see a reason to wait until I found my _soul mate_. Plus there was always a fifty percent chance you were going to be a man. My family still hasn’t gotten over the betrayal but they are very gracious around Tazim.” Bastard that the boy was, being born out of the most sacred of unions. “Why do you need the money?”

“It doesn’t matter why I need it. You need to pay it or I’m going to have to resort to convincing you by other means.” 

Malik laughed at that, tipped his head back against the chair and _laughed_. 

“It won’t be funny when it’s happening,” Altair said somewhere from the left. He grabbed the couch and yanked it around so he could lay down on it and look at Malik. “Everyone thinks it’s a joke until the potato peeler comes out.”

“Potato peeler?” 

“Yeah. Have you ever used one of those? Accidentally cut the skin off one of your knuckles with it? It hurts like a bitch.”

“I’m sure it does,” Malik said (conversationally). “Doesn’t matter. I told you, you are a brand new soul mate and nothing matters except what I want and what you can give to me.” 

Altair stretched himself out on the couch and yawned. One of his arms behind his head and the other resting a hand across his belly. “You might be surprised what I’m capable of.” But it was bravado and not fact. The way his eyes closed and he made a show of snuggling in for a snooze. “Wake me up in a few hours.”

\--

Altair had not meant to fall asleep. In fact, he had settled himself into place in an attempt to unnerve Malik (with his nonexistent ease at kidnapping and threatening to torture people) but he was thinking about Desmond. The idiot had to have been out of the side cities by now, safe in the country. As long as Altair got the money to cover the fees for Desmond’s indiscretions (giving away secrets, that was) and his freedom, the idiot should be safe with their cousin. He amused himself with thinking of Desmond milking cows and woke up to the sound of his phone ringing shrilly from the kitchen. 

“That’s the second time it’s started ringing,” Malik said. He was pink with sweat but his voice was cool as anything. 

Altair ran (didn’t walk) to grab the phone in the last precious seconds before the ringing stopped. “Yes?” he said without checking the number. His voice was a pant-of-exertion as he folded forward to press his forehead to the counter. The vertigo of abruptly waking knocking around his skull like loose marbles.

“Two hundred and twenty five, Altair. Do not repeat this mistake.” His voice was unforgiving and icy. Altair’s skin was crawling as he looked out through the corner of his eye like the man could be on the phone and in this kitchen at the exact same moment. That pervasive, perverse lack of safety made his stomach turn over. 

“I understand,” Altair said. He waited until the call disconnected and then turned to vomit the entire contents of his stomach into the black trashcan. He washed his mouth out and pulled open all the drawers until he found the knives. He took a paring knife, a steak knife and a deboning knife. 

Malik was craning his head back to see him. His whole body was twisted against the tape in the attempt. “Did you miss your curfew?”

Altair set the knives down on the glass table top before he picked it up and moved it directly in front of Malik. He was a novice at interrogation, even more unpracticed in the art of persuasion but he had spent a lifetime outsmarting men who thought they were better than him. He left the room long enough to get another chair and brought it back to set across from Malik.

“Do you know what most people are doing in the short hours after they discover their soul mates?” Malik said once Altair was sitting. He was relaxed in his seat (as relaxed as possible) with a fine sheen of sweat making his skin shine. There was a ruddy pinkness to his neck and cheeks with a red swell to his lips. 

“Fucking,” Altair said. He had seen soul mates in the side cities. Most of the people there were just-trying to survive, trying to keep themselves out of the clutches of the Old Man or even worse, the likes of De Sable and the Borgia. Distracted by survival, robbed of vitality by hunger and driven to desperation by a disastrous lack of safety, most people didn’t care if they found their soul mate or not. But the few that had, well they reveled in the joy of love and withered away with the fear of loss. “Do you want to fuck me, Malik?”

“Yes,” Malik said. “I was thinking about it while you were laying there. You have very long legs, Altair. And the color of your skin looks like it would taste divine under my tongue. I was thinking about my cock sliding between your lips and how you’d look especially good on your knees moaning my name.”

A jolt of arousal flashed through Altair’s body. He shifted in his seat—suddenly hyper aware of the exposed length of his lower arms where he’d rolled his sleeves up and the spread of his open collar. Suddenly aware of the exact color of Malik’s skin—darker than his, but not by much—and the inky blackness of his hair. Aware of how wet his mouth looked and how powerful Malik's body had felt when he had the chance to put his hands all over him. “That’s presumptuous of you.”

“It’s not,” Malik said. Altair was opening his mouth to explain exactly all the ways that it was when Malik cut him off, “you’re getting on your knees for someone; at least you’d enjoy doing it for me.”

\--

Malik had never been scared for his life. His life had been, in every way that mattered, blessed. His parents had seen that he was rolled up in a perfect world where nothing could harm him. Pain had been limited to the agony of being denied a coveted toy or the bloody impact of little knees on hard pavement. His adult life had been filled with accomplishment and privilege. Even the threat that Altair posed to him was (most likely) minimal. 

But the savage whiteness of Altair’s teeth in those first few seconds and the reflexive way the man’s fist tightened around the hilt of the paring knife closest to him was a crystalline-clear moment of fear that rose from Malik’s belly and stuck in his wildly beating heart. For the passage of as many as six breaths (the amount of time it took for Altair to grab his face and tip his head back as far as he could) Malik could not think of a single thing—nothing at all but the white terror he’d never felt before. “The price has raised,” Altair said. “Two hundred and twenty five.”

“No,” Malik said. 

Altair was holding the knife inches from his face, squeezing his jaw hard enough that Malik couldn’t close his mouth and they were stuck there just-like-that. For a moment, neither of them were certain what the other would do. 

Then Altair stabbed the knife into the wooden back of the chair with such force it tipped the chair up onto two legs. He took his hand off the knife and it was shaking, Malik watched him turn around so he couldn’t see his face and didn’t even recognizing the rattling breath as his own until he tried to speak. 

“I told you that you couldn’t do it,” Malik said. Because it worked like that, soul mates were powerless to each other. His mother had always told him it was the greatest contradiction in the world: powerless to one another and powerful against everyone else. He’d cracked Altair open and now he had to find the soft inside parts without inciting him to rage. “Look, I’m not unreasonable.”

“Not unreasonable?” Altair shouted at him. “Did you hear yourself? Have you been listening to yourself at all? Do you think this is something I wanted to do?” Altair screamed at him. His hands slapped across Malik’s forearms as he leaned across the chair.

“No,” Malik said. Then he leaned forward as far as he could manage and kissed Altair. It was easier-than-he-expected, sort of like falling into bed at the end of a long day. The sensation of being warm after being stuck outside for too long on a snowy day. Every part of his body prickled with sudden awareness and a moan vibrated across his tongue as Altair kissed him back. The grip of tape keeping his hands against the smooth wood of the chair was the single objection he could find in the sudden full awareness of how very much he wanted this man. (This criminal, this human punching bag.) Altair’s hands on his face were rough-as-sandpaper but his mouth was sweet-and-soft and oh-so-willing. 

“Fuck,” Altair snapped when he pulled suddenly away. His hand scrubbed at his lips and he kicked the chair when he moved abruptly away toward freedom. He went to the kitchen again, retreating with quick steps and a desperate clink of glass bottles of expensive beer. 

“Bring me one!” Malik shouted. “Before you drink them all.”

Altair brought one back, set it on the glass table and then went around to sit in his own chair. He wasn’t smiling, wasn’t amused by his own cruelty, but pink around the eyes and watching Malik like he was working out what to do next.

“That’s unnecessarily cruel,” Malik said. 

“Give me the money,” Altair said.

“I’m sorry I don’t tip waitresses that give shitty service.” 

\--

They sat in silence, Altair sipping both of the beers while Malik glared at him with a hatred most people reserved for uninvited guests (which he was) and vermin (which Malik mostly likely thought of him as). It was far from the vapid romanticized retellings of famous soul mates. Neither of them were moved to tears, for instance, and neither of them were likely to risk life and limb to be together. The most he was willing to concede at the moment was the fact that he was persistently half-hard with the notion of stripping Malik naked and licking the taste of his quick-wit off his tongue. 

The only comfort he’d found in the situation was the fact that Malik obviously had a similar problem if the steady flush of his cheeks and the obvious plumpness in his pants was any indication. 

“Take your shirt off,” Malik said.

Altair was not expecting the words (or the easy agreement that wiggled down his spine toward his hands). He leaned against the right arm of the chair and said, “why?”

“I’m stuck with you forever. We’re not doing anything else constructive.”

That wasn’t why. But he stood up and pulled at the pearly white buttons of the shirt he’d been given to blend in with the other rich men that populated the metropolis. It slid off his arms easily and he tossed it to the side before he grabbed the bottom of the ribbed undershirt and pulled it over his head. His body was comfortably muscled, strong and fast when it had to be, but yesterday's meeting had left blooming blue and purple bruises across his ribs and his stomach. He stood for a moment and let Malik look at him, took a moment relish the shock on his face before he picked up the beer and took another drink. “I wasn’t allowed to be a whore,” Altair said. Since Malik seemed fixated on the idea. “See, when my parents died, I had nobody to take me in so I was put up for auction. That’s how its done in the side cities, you know? An orphan is a valuable commodity to the right people, and the man who won me told me that I was worth too much to waste on petty crimes. He taught me to pickpocket.” Altair grabbed his suit jacket off the chair and reached into the pocket to pull out a litter of credit cards he’d lifted off people while he waited for Malik earlier. He threw them across the table. “It was my face, he said. I look like a rich man’s son, he said. So no drugs and no whoring. There’s a lot of money in those fine trades, but you don’t last long there.”

Malik looked at his face, “but this sort of work provides long term job security?”

“The rent isn’t much where I live. I steal, I beg and sometimes I swindle. The trouble is my idiot kid brother. You asked what I needed the money for? Two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars buys him out and I don’t have to take any more beatings because he’s too stupid to figure out how life works.” Altair sat back down, watched Malik looking at his bruises like he couldn’t help it. 

\--

That complicated things. Malik had been expecting some kind of story, perhaps something about making the wrong man angry. He had considered that Altair was a gambler but he’d mostly considered drugs—it was always drugs on the news. Malik let out a sigh, didn’t let the words sink through his skin the way he’d learned not to worry too much about the poor fools that were thrown aside by rich men-and-women with brand-new-soul-mates. 

“You can’t seriously believe that,” Malik said. “If not for your brother’s sake than for something else. Look at you, there’s a dozen bruises on your chest and not all of them are new. Whoever’s been hitting you isn’t going to stop. I’m not giving you the money.”

“You’ve only got eighteen hours left,” Altair said.

“Are you going to kill me?” Malik asked.

“I’m not. I don’t kill people but I’ve only got twenty four hours to get this done before the old man sends in the professionals. They’ll be cleaning you and me up off these nice floors with mops when they’re done.” He took one last long drink of the beer and picked up the empties to return them to the kitchen. 

\--

The house phone rang and Altair squinted at the number before turning it around so Malik could look at it. He said, “it’s my son,” and seemed surprised when Altair pressed the button to answer it and held it up to his ear. He stood there while Malik talked to his son like it was any-day-really. When they’d exhausted the topics involving kindergarten and dinner, Malik told the boy he loved him and sang him a song in Arabic before telling him goodnight. 

“Give me the money,” Altair said when the phone was sitting back in its cradle. “Just give me the fucking money and we can be done with this.”

“And this becomes what, a fun story to tell our children one day?” Malik said. 

“I just want to fuck you,” Altair said because he wanted to rub his body all against Malik’s in a way that was nearly impossible to ignore. The sound of him talking to his son had been like reigniting a fire that had only barely been put out. 

“My dick is possibly the only part of my body not taped to this chair,” Malik said sweetly. “There is another alternative to our current predicament.”

Altair snorted at that notion. “Unless it involves you giving me money, I doubt it’s a good alternative.”

“My family is very powerful,” Malik said.

Altair sat back in the chair across from him, put his forearms against the cool top of the glass table. The fire at his back had all but smothered itself, leaving nothing but glowing embers to give up the last residual licks of heat now and again. “The real world doesn’t work like that. This isn’t a political maneuver. What I stand to lose isn’t stock options or money. My brother’s life depends on this money regardless of how safe you think you can make me.”

Malik made a humming noise but he didn’t say anything further.

\--

After being taped to a chair for nearly seven hours, Malik’s chief complaints were hunger, thirst, the need to urinate and most important a growing physical _need_ to be in bodily contact with Altair. None of them were surprising, save for the intensity of the last of the list. He’d heard enough stories and seen enough movies to know how mass media presented the act of finding and consummating a soul mate bond but he’d also seen real life couples that looked as if the most passionate thing they were capable of doing was agreeing on place settings for their wedding. 

“What?” Altair asked from where he’d resumed lounging on the couch. One of his legs was bent at the knee and set against the back cushions and the other was hanging open in such a way that the suit pants bunched around his crotch and gave a clear view of his own precarious state of partial arousal. “You’re making noises.”

“How was I chosen as a target for extortion?”

“You are rich enough to get money from but not well known enough to cause a scandal. The old man likes to take exactly enough to get what he needs and wants without causing a stir. Publicity is bad for his business, you know.” Altair looked bored as he said it, as if he’d heard or spoken the words countless times before. “Fees are fair the way justice is fair—if you mess up, you pay a fee. If you want out, you pay a fee.”

“How much to get you out?” Malik asked.

“Half a million.” 

The price seemed unnecessarily steep in comparison to his own brother’s paltry two hundred thousand. Whatever services Altair provided for his master, or might provide in the future, must have been far more respected and necessary than the ones his kid brother provided.

“But you only want two hundred twenty five?” 

“Why, do you have seven hundred twenty five thousand dollars lying around you want to give me?”

Malik frowned at him and Altair smiled smugly in his direction. 

\--

Altair did a quick search through all of the upstairs bathrooms, rifled through all of Malik’s perfect drawers and managed to find his illicit stash of sex paraphernalia hidden in the bottom of his underwear drawer in a black zipper bag. There were condoms and lube that brought a dirty little thrill to the bottom of Altair’s belly as he tried very hard not to think about what they could be doing. The situation hadn’t gotten drastic enough (yet) to really consider fucking Malik into giving him the money but it wasn’t far away from that point.

He took a shower in Malik’s bathroom and put on some of his silky-soft pajama pants before he went back down stairs. The man was eyeing the bottles of water on the floor with the same desperate longing as a dying man in a desert. Altair set the black bag on the table before he picked a water bottle up and found the straw from earlier to give him something to drink. Malik drank greedily but he was looking at the bag with a definite blush on his cheeks.

“I thought you weren’t gay,” Altair said.

“Lubrication is good for many purposes.” Malik licked his lips and sighed as he leaned back against the chair. His shirt was soaked from the heat stuck behind the tape and his shirt sleeves had ripped where the tape had wrapped around them. He eyed the bag for a moment and then looked up at Altair. “That’s fairly presumptuous of you.”

“Give me the money, Malik. I’ll untie you, we can fuck and I’ll leave. This whole thing can be an unhappy memory for both of us.”

“Except that, I won’t give you the money, this is tape so it cannot be untied, we’re going to fuck eventually regardless and you won’t be able to leave me once we do. I’m not sure what sort of education you’ve had but soul mates are a permanent thing. You and I are stuck together from the moment we touched.”

“Give me the money,” Altair said again.

“No,” Malik said.

“Give me the money.”

“No.”

“Give me—”

“No.”

“—the money!” Altair wanted to strangle the bastard and found himself kissing him instead. Malik’s eager tongue against his, and the twisting attempts of his arms to be free leaving his hands wriggling like little worms caught on hooks—helpless. Altair’s body fell clumsily into the chair, his knees knocking against the wooden sides and the seat as his folded legs slid to either side of Malik’s. They were kissing with violent abandon, robbed of every better sense they possessed. “Give me the money,” he said again with his mouth sucking at the salt-sweat and cologne on Malik’s neck. 

“No,” Malik retorted as he tried to jerk his hips up against Altair’s body. 

“Damn it,” Altair said (like a snarl, or a moan), “just give me the money.”

“No,” Malik said. 

“Why?” He sat back far enough to clear the spinning of his head, far enough to see Malik trying to compose himself long enough to answer. “I know you have it or I wouldn’t be here.”

“Because you’re a criminal,” Malik said. The objection was good enough to get them both killed but not enough to keep Malik from trying to nudge him closer with the rise of his knees and the stretched-out tips of his fingers. 

“I’m your soul mate,” Altair said. “It’s been proven in a hundred studies that both halves of a soul mate are so similar in morals, beliefs, physical and mental health that it’s impossible for one half to be guilty of something the other is not.”

“I’m a lawyer, you kidnap people. We are not the same,” Malik said.

“Right now you’re bordering on being a murderer. My life, your life and my brother’s life depends on you giving me the money. You said it yourself, if we get legally certified as soul mates, half of what’s yours is mine. I don’t want half, I just want two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars.”

“You’re not even an ambitious criminal,” Malik retorted. “You could ask for anything. You could go to my family. You could have taken my kid. You’re the worst sort of criminal there is—incompetent and underprepared to follow through on the idle threats you make. I am not giving you the money.”

\--

The noise Altair made was something between a scream of frustration and a bear’s growl. He climbed off Malik’s lap (an unwelcome motion) and kicked the chair in a childish act of disapproval. Then he went back to the chair he’d brought out for himself and sat down. “Then what should we do while we wait for the real criminals to get here?”

Fuck. They should fuck like rabbits in a warren, over-and-over-and-over until they couldn’t move a single inch. 

“I have a DVR full of shows I haven’t had time to watch,” Malik said. “Also you could feed me, I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

Altair looked as if he were going to object for a moment but let out a sigh instead and said, “why not?”


	2. Chapter 2

Altair raided the fridge for the remainder of leftovers. He laid the buffet out on the glass table before he looked around the room they were occupying for the unknown location of the TV. There was the massive fireplace, the furniture placed around it and paintings on most of the walls. There was a large window with heavy drapes and a rug that Altair had rolled up and put out of the way earlier. But there was no (so far as he could tell) TV to speak of. 

Malik was sitting as comfortably in the heavy wooden chair as was possible to do so with two rolls of duct tape holding him in place. He made it seem as cozy as a recliner, all ease and laziness as his head tipped against the back of the seat. His hair was pulled out of its slicked-backed perfection, was alternatively stuck to his forehead with sweat and sticking out at random intervals 

“I hate you,” Altair said to the unspoken taunt. The TV, wherever the hell it was, was not in this room. “Also, it’s your floors that are going to suffer so keep smirking.”

“You could just cut the tape and I’ll walk.”

“Straight to the police station, I’m sure.” Altair went back to the kitchen to get the big mat by the sink. He dropped it cloth-side-down in front of Malik’s chair before he grabbed it by the arms and hefted it up far enough to kick the rug under it.

“What do I stand to gain by turning you in?” Malik asked. “You keep saying that I’m going to call the police on you and while it is a very tempting suggestion, I’m not sure you understand how much of the law is in your favor at this point.”

Altair dropped the chair with a jerk that knocked Malik’s stubborn head against wood and went around behind him to wiggle the back legs on the carpet. “Where’s the TV?” He put both hands on the back of the chair and started pushing toward the broad opening that led to this room. Malik offered directions by pointing his fingers until they ended up in a decidedly unsophisticated room that was largely covered with old leather furniture, worn out looking blankets, an assortment of children’s toys and an entire wall of video games and movies. “Does your mother know about this room?”

“No she does not,” Malik said. He looked longingly at what had to be his favorite recliner before sighing. “Food?”

\--

Altair brought the glass table rather than move the food to the far more useful wooden tables that he kept in the rec room. He left the dishes steaming-and-delicious sitting right in front of Malik (but so far out of reach) before finding the correct remotes to operate the TV and dropping them just beyond fingertip reach on the glass table top. “Hold still,” he said. Then he pulled a knife out of the floppy back pocket of the pajamas he’d pilfered, flipped it open and slid it up the narrow space between Malik’s arm and the arm of the chair. It slid easily through the layers of tape in a way that impressive but not comforting. A knife that sharp in the hands of an unknown entity was one step too close to a lethal threat for comfort. 

Malik lifted his left arm and Altair caught his wrist to undo the button and pull the ripped shirt sleeve off and dropped it on the floor to the side. Then he gave him a spoon and pulled the table close enough he could reach whatever he wanted. His stomach (and his now throbbing hunger headache) demanded he go for the food but once-freed (before sense could register) his hand grabbed Altair by the arm and pulled him down again. The man was easy to pull into place, easy to kiss, easy to touch everywhere his skin was bare and warm. Malik’s hand was on his throat to feel the fast-fast pace of Altair’s heart, on his chest to feel the strength of his lithe body, on his arms and down. Around to his back to pull him closer and failing that, to spread a hand across his ass and feel how tight and perfect it was. (To think, he hadn’t even known he was gay yesterday.) Oh-and-Altair uttered the most surprised little moan as his hands reflexively tightened against Malik’s arm. The kiss stuttered as Altair tipped his head down toward his own chest and drew in a wet breath. 

“Give me the money,” he said when he looked at Malik again. They were close enough to brush noses. Close enough to smell the shampoo Altair had used to wash his hair, to see the indent of the scar across his perfectly shaped lips, close enough to see the dazzling array of browns that made up Altair’s eyes. Close enough that for just a second, Malik thought he’d give this man anything in the world just so long as they never had to be separated again. 

“No,” Malik said out of habit, but not instinct. 

Altair pulled beyond his reach in one fluid motion. He took the remotes as he went and found a safe place beyond touching distance to sit. The TV flickered on as a retort to Malik’s continued denial. “It figures you’d watch reality TV,” he muttered.

“I like cooking shows,” Malik said.

\--

Altair’s skin was starting to itch (but that was all in his head). The first blush of fever had passed, the mad _need_ to rub the entirety of his body against Malik’s had levelled into intense aggravation at the other man for being stubborn. They had gotten along fine for a few hours ignoring one another’s physical bodies. But Malik’s hand on his bare skin had brought it all back to the forefront of his mind.

“Fuck,” Malik said to the side. He had been wiggling in the chair with greater frequency since the first commercial break of the ridiculous cooking show that set three chefs competing against one another for money. But it presented itself like life-or-death with a crescendo of music akin to an action movie’s final boss fight. 

“What?” Altair asked. He was laid across the worn-in (but not worn-out) recliner with one of the fleece throws have dragged over his lap. “Everyone in the world knew that guy was getting eliminated.”

Malik turned his head as far as he could manage (not far at all, really) to stare at him. “You’re actually watching the fucking TV show right now?”

“If you’re not, I’m changing it to something actually worth watching.” He hadn’t even looked at Malik in thirty minutes, just listened to the spoon drag against the dishes and the fidget of his body against the wooden chair. Looking at him was remembering that if this whole fucked up thing hadn’t interrupted a natural process, they’d be going at it like rabid little rabbits. 

“I’m watching it,” Malik said. But he wasn’t. The flush on his neck was far too rosy and there was an embarrassed pinkness to his cheeks that made him seem even more irresistible. Altair shifted in his seat to get a better look at him and grinned at the way Malik kept dragging at the leg of his pants as if he had to pretend he wasn’t trying to readjust his erection. “I just thought you must have died back there.”

“Nope,” Altair said. He stood up, dropped the blanket back on the chair and lifted up to his toes to stretch. The motion hurt the bruises (every motion hurt the bruises) but the glassy arousal on Malik’s face made it worth it. “I’m going to get a beer, want one?”

“Yeah,” Malik said. 

\--

Malik’s mother liked to call him things like ‘tenacious’ and ‘stalwart’ and once and again she gifted him with the ambiguous honor of ‘unyielding’ but what she meant was that he was a pig-headed asshole. It was a failing that he’d been aware of long before the moment of clear agony that followed Altair striding out of the rec room. Any other man (made of less stubborn things) would have been masturbating as furiously as possible (fuck pride, any other man probably would have been masturbating with Altair in the room). But Malik-was-Malik and he clenched his teeth and grabbed at the top of the chair to keep his free hand as far from his dick as possible.

He closed his eyes and listened the prattle of the TV that had been doing a credible imitation of trying to hold his attention. Without the gnawing hunger for food, his headache abated and his body decided that sex was clearly the second most essential thing. 

It was counting to a hundred (or a thousand) to try to calm down the irrational urge to chew his way to freedom and bodily attack Altair with sex. He was on sixty-seven when he heard the tinny sound of Altair’s phone ring not so very far away. The man’s voice was too quiet to be heard but the conspicuous absence of his footsteps moving toward the room seemed damning. Malik hadn’t forgotten about the puppet-master behind this attack but it had fallen out of place as the most significant thing to think about. 

Malik’s brain was foggy (how many hours had it been since he woke up that morning?) and it was getting harder to keep things clear when his body was exerting its own separate desires at the loudest possible volume. He twisted around in the chair in an effort to hear Altair and found that he couldn’t hear anything but the TV blaring pointlessly across the room. 

It seemed too suddenly (unannounced, even) when Altair came back in the room. He had the two beers hanging from his left hand—held one out for Malik—and the black bag in the other. It brought a filthy thrill to Malik’s whole body that throbbed loudest and most obnoxiously in his dick. Altair set his own beer on the table, dropped the bag in an empty space between the dishes and shoved the whole table back out of the way. Then he was climbing one-two knees into the chair with one hand on the tall back of the chair. His lips were damp and his face was solemn-and-pink. He was slim (everywhere) and flexible as hell what with the way his legs slid into the spaces between the seat of the chair and the arms. His weight settled deliciously in place with a wicked-little-wiggle. His hand grabbed Malik by the chin and tipped his face up to kiss him. 

Oh-fucking-hell, it was _perfect_ in that mad span of seconds. The beer Malik had been kind of holding hit the ground with an imperfect cracking sound. Malik was running his condensation-damp hand down Altair’s back as the man’s thighs flexed and his ass rocked back-and-forth across the appreciative rise of Malik’s dick. It was everything-all-at-once that his mother-and-father-and-(aunts, uncles, cousins) had ever told him it would be. Every stupid fairy tale and every insipid romance was thrown into sudden, painful reality with Altair in his lap. 

(Oh-except-for-) Malik pulled back, hand tightening around Altair’s impressively muscled forearm as he said, “don’t do this.” 

Altair didn’t stop moving. The chair was squeaking with the motion and Malik was biting his tongue against the eager-shake of his body willing to give Altair anything he wanted to take. But Altair’s voice was a dark-chuckle of desperation when he said, “you think I want to do this? You think any of this is what I want?”

Malik’s head tipped back and Altair sucked on his neck exactly-how-he-liked it with the spread of his shirt collar gaping open to give him all the room he wanted. But Malik pulled at his hair and only barely managed to pull Altair away. “Stop,” he said.

Altair stopped but he didn’t move away farther than scooting his weight back toward Malik’s knees. 

There was sweat everywhere-on-Malik, soaking his clothes and his hair. He took in an unsteady breath and wiped his hand across his mouth. Somewhere back at the beginning of those catastrophe he’d made a critical error in judgment. (Probably when he decided to chase the jerk that broke his phone.) “I think it’s time we called in a negotiator,” Malik said.

“I think if I take my pants off and climb on your dick you’ll give me the deed to your fucking house.” Altair’s voice wasn’t the smooth (albeit harassed and embarrassed) drawl it had been before. He was not willing to play along any longer. There was blood in his mouth and nothing in his voice except the resolve to finish his mission. 

“But I won’t give you the money,” Malik said. “Good luck selling the house in fifteen hours.”

\--

Altair laughed and the sound shocked him nearly as much as it shocked Malik. The two of them were jolted right out of place by the sound his hysterical laugh. Malik knocked his head against the chair and Altair nearly fell backward out of it—saved only by the high arms of the stupid thing and Malik’s steadying hand on his elbow. “You’re such an asshole,” he said with his voice scrubbed raw. 

“But I’m not unreasonable,” Malik objected.

“You are the _definition_ of unreasonable! I kidnapped you, I taped you to a chair, I have threatened you with dismemberment and you won’t give me the fucking money. Not only will you not give me the money, you’ve admitted that half of _everything you own_ will be mine. Please, please explain to me in what way you are not unreasonable,” Altair said. He put his feet up on the crossbars of the chair legs (called blessings, someone told him) and watched Malik’s face as all of his attention was drawn down to the conspicuous shape of Altair’s erection tenting the front of the pajama pants. “Concentrate,” Altair said.

Malik looked back up at his face, “I’m guessing there isn’t much in the way of education where you’re from.” Altair said nothing. “You’re destitute, Altair. You’re a victim of repeated violent crimes. You are incapable mentally and physically of providing for yourself and that makes me, your soul mate, responsible for you. I am legally, morally, socially obligated to pay your debts.”

Altair could have killed him. It must have shown on his face because Malik wasn’t amused at his stupidity anymore but resigned.

“Listen,” Malik said, “legally, I don’t stand a chance against you. All you have to do is show up and show your bruises, tell people you were a pickpocket for whatever mob boss you work for and that your brother’s life was at risk and the courts of this city will give you everything you ask for.”

“I don’t want everything!” Altair screamed at him. The desperation in it paled in comparison to the voice over the phone offering to send him convincing assistance in between thinly veiled threats about his brother. “I want two-hundred-and-twenty five thousand dollars.”

Malik looked confounded. He looked, in that moment, as if reality itself had fallen out from under him and he had found himself suddenly thrust into Wonderland where everything was upside down and playing cards were going to cut his head off. He cleared his throat softly; he spoke very civilly when he said, “but that’s not all I want.”

\--

The realization, when it dawned on Altair’s face was a thing of dumfounded beauty. It made his face go slack and his hands lay uselessly against his own thighs. The state of arousal that had been nagging at them both seemed to dissipate almost instantly in the brief seconds of peaceful, numb shock before Altair’s eyes narrowed at him. “You,” he said. His eyes closed as his head tipped to one side (like he couldn’t settle the thoughts in his head). “You really put us through all of this shit as a _negotiation tactic_?”

“I’ve done worse,” Malik assured him. Of course, those things had been done in circles that understood the intricate dance of negotiation. Those people that had something to bargain for and greater aspirations in life than two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars.

“This isn’t a fucking divorce proceeding!” Altair screamed at him. “My brother’s life depends on this money! _My life_ depends on it!”

“Mine doesn’t?” Malik said. “You kidnapped me; you don’t get to pretend you aren’t as unreasonable as I am. And why did I get picked? Because I’m a rich kid from a rich family with a rich job as a rich man’s lawyer. Except, if your research department paid attention to details they wouldn’t have gone after me. I’ve got a soft-hearted baby brother and an idiot aunt that would have given you the money in five minutes or less. You won’t get anything from me.” Then, after a breath, “it’s not a divorce, Altair. This is the rest of our lives and there are things I’m not giving up the right to have just because your first demand is short-sighted.”

“You’re not giving anything up, you’re using my brother’s life as leverage to get what you want,” Altair snapped back at him. “No. It’s worse than that.” He put his hands across Malik’s forearms and lifted himself free from the chair. “You’re using your own life as leverage. You have every advantage.”

“That is overstating things,” Malik said.

Altair had one hand going through his hair when Malik spoke and it whipped wildly out to the side with a great dramatic flair. “That phone call was to inform me that my brother’s car had broken down on the way to my cousin’s house and that my boss was sending a couple of guys to pick him up _as a favor_. That’s nice of him, wasn’t it? Except that he also felt like giving me a hand because he’s got one of his best men on his way here to help me convince you to give up the money. And what the fuck am I supposed to say to that? Please don’t murder my brother? Please don’t hurt my soul mate? Do you know what they’ll do if they find out what you are?”

“I imagine it’ll be very similar to what they’re already doing but on a grander scale. That’s why the money won’t solve anything.”

“The money solves everything!” Altair shouted at him.

“You’re an idiot.” And not even Malik could bring himself to be surprised when Altair slapped him hard enough to leave a livid red handprint across his face. “Bring me the phone,” Malik said without looking at him. “My family is a hell of a lot more powerful and terrifying than whatever you think the bastard that sent you here to do this is.” Then he did look up at him. “Give me the phone and I swear your brother will be safe and none of those bastard will ever touch you again.”

Malik had a brother and Malik loved his brother (of course he did) but it wasn’t the same desperate feeling that was plastered across Altair’s face in that split second before he could hide it. Malik hadn’t ever been asked to give up anything for Kadar, he couldn’t even imagine a world where he would have been. The hollow unknown depth of emotion Altair felt (in that moment) was enough to steal a sane man’s breath. Malik meant to tear Altair apart and extract what he wanted from the pieces, but there was no satisfaction in knowing that he’d finally broken him.

“You can promise me, right now, that my brother is safe?” Altair said.

“Yes,” Malik said, “if you bring me the phone.”

\--

Things did not progress with immediate speed. Altair delivered the phone to Malik who made three phone calls, the first to someone named Shaun, the second to his Mother and the last to the woman he’d called earlier to pick up his son. Each phone call was painfully concise.

Shaun was: “get up and come to my house now, Shaun. Let yourself in.”

The second was, “Hello Mother, I need Desmond Miles found and retrieved.” Followed by the list of routes that Altair told him Desmond might have gone to reach his cousin’s house, as well as his cousin’s actual address.

The third was, “invaders, Maria.” 

Then Malik set the phone on the table and let out a shaky breath. “I’m not heartless,” he said when every bit of evidence seemed to point to the opposite conclusion. “You have to understand that my business is entirely rooted in fucking over innocent people. Men like me—with wealth and power—we attract an endless array of people like you. They dog at our footsteps until maybe one lucky bastard finally ends up being our soul mate. Everybody wants to be Cinderella.”

“Except me. I don’t want anything from you,” Altair said, and then (because it was true), “except sex. I wouldn’t say no to sex.”

Malik’s smile was a precious, fleeting thing across his face as he nodded agreeably. “It is a mutual feeling, I assure you. There are things I want out of my life that are in your very crude and ignorant hands based solely on the unlucky lot you drew in life and the one in a billion chance that I am your soul mate.”

“Like _what_?” What could be worth the wasted hours, anxiety, effort and injury?

“Everything,” Malik said. “You could demand anything and get it. You don’t want kids? We won’t have any. I might even lose Tazim. You want a steady paycheck and your own house? You’d get it. You want a hundred cats? You’d probably get it. Your case, especially, would allow you get whatever you wanted because you’re _my_ soul mate and half the judges in this city hate me.”

“I wonder why.” Altair scrubbed at his sweaty hair and then looked longingly at the recliner. He took the time to turn the chair so he could see Malik’s face and flop into the chair (exhausted now). “So you refused to give me the money at all?”

“I need you to understand the gravity of the situation and that we can both emerge from this with what is most important to us. The rest of this,” Malik motioned at the tape binding him to the chair (for instance), “we can deal with. It won’t even matter; it’s barely mattered while it was happening.”

“You and I have very different views on what has happened here,” Altair said. He pulled the blanket up over his chest because he was cold and looked at the crisscrossed tape on Malik’s legs. “I’m tired.”

“This nightmare hasn’t even started yet,” Malik assured him. “Plan on sleeping tomorrow sometime.” But he reached across the short space to grab one of the blankets off the couch and pulled it over himself. 

\--

Shaun let himself in with a quiet shuffle of expensive shoes and blue jeans. He was wearing the shirt he’d had on earlier (the one with the collar that annoyed him) and a sweater, carrying a bag in one hand and looking hassled, half-asleep and then (quite suddenly upon seeing Malik taped to a chair and his incompetent kidnapper napping in chair) hesitant. “Please tell me that he is not a hooker and this is not a kinky sex thing I’ve been called in to negotiate the payment for,” Shaun said.

“That would be a far more interesting story to tell,” Malik said softly. He was on the verge of sleep (as close as any man whose entire family was sure to descend upon him in a matter of hours could possibly be). 

Altair stirred awake, stretched with an arch of his back that bared the colorful bruises patterning across his chest and stomach, and blinked at Shaun and the bag he was carrying. His mouth pulled into a frown but he didn’t launch into any immediate objections beyond straightening up in the chair.

“Oh fuck me,” Shaun said quietly, “he’s your soul mate.”

“Yes he is,” Malik said.

“I’ve just walked in on a crime.”

“You have.”

Shaun considered all the evidence for a moment. His face a fair-and-impartial observer taking note of the beer spilt on the floor, the empty dishes on the glass table, the defensive curl of Altair’s body and the way his hand had loosened from its white-knuckled grip on the blanket and then at the layers of tape holding Malik in place. He cleared his throat, stepped across the puddle of beer and sat gingerly on the edge of the couch. His full attention was on Altair (not Malik) when he said. “It’s important that you have a clear understanding of what is about to happen. First, before anything else, we’re going to attempt a preliminary agreement between the two of you.” He looked at Altair a little more closely and shifted in his seat. “Whatever or whoever has led to you committing this crime, try to set that aside because it is undoubtedly being handled as we speak.” Shaun did look back at him briefly.

“Mother and Maria have been notified.”

“Maria?” Shaun repeated. His eyes widened and his cheeks went a little pink. “Six months or a year?”

Malik looked at Altair and the uncertain way he had shifted himself so his back was against the wall. He was a pathetic wretch of a person, intensely distrustful of everything that was being said to him, but he wasn’t stupid and he wasn’t damaged beyond salvation. “Six months,” Malik said. 

Shaun turned his full attention back to Altair so abruptly the two of them seemed to flinch at the motion. “Do you agree to a discussion regarding more a permanent contract in six months? What that means is we’re only putting a few restrictions or expectations into place now, things that have to be fulfilled in six months.”

“I want two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars,” Altair said.

“The money will not solve the problem!” Malik shouted at him. Because the bastard wouldn’t _let it go_.

Shaun slapped his hand against the pad of paper he’d pulled out of his bag and Malik glared at him (very much like an overly tired sullen child). “You are no longer allowed to speak, Malik. If you say one more word out of turn I will tell your mother that you refused to give your obviously tormented soul mate two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars—a sum that amounts to about half of what you made in the course of two hours yesterday, a paltry figure in comparison to what you stand to inherit—and what do you think she will do to you?”

The grin on Altair’s face was worth its weight in gold. It was the first genuinely smug-and-confident expression that he’d made and it was instantly enraging and endearing to see. But it was gone again before Shaun turned to look at him. “Cash or check, uh—what is your name?”

“Altair Ibn-La’Ahad and cash,” Altair said.

“What is the money to be used for?” 

“To get my brother out of debt,” Altair said. Like he’d been saying it on repeat for hours. Like he was speaking to a man too stupid to understand. 

Shaun looked at Malik, “your mother is going to skin you alive. Any objections not based on the fact that you’re an asshole?”

“Give him seven hundred and twenty five thousand dollars as he will not be returning to his previous line of work,” Malik said. “The fact that the money will not solve the problem should be documented somewhere. I just want it to be established as a fact.”

“What problem the money doesn’t solve, Maria will. Now, what do you want?”

\--

“I want children,” Malik said. 

Altair had expected anything to come out of Malik’s mouth. He had expected a lengthy monotonous litany of loose legal jargon to gush out of his face like a water tap turned on high. He had expected greed. He had expected more of the same disdainful disapproval of the life that Altair had been leading jostled awkwardly into place next to the desperate desire in his face every time Malik looked at him. Altair had expected anything in the world except for those words.

“What!” Altair shouted at him. He was up on his feet, bent forward from the weight of the disbelief in his chest. His fists were balled up like hammers and no power on earth (not love, not attraction, not law, not common sense) was going to keep him from beating Malik black-and-bloody. 

“I want you to agree right now that we will have children and that Tazim will never be sent away,” Malik said. He said it so softly and so calmly as if it were the single most important and rational thing in the world. 

Shaun (the lawyer) was halfway to standing in the space between them, carefully out of range of flying fists but close enough to look like he was going to intervene. “It’s a common point of contention.”

Altair slapped his hands across the tops of Malik’s forearms and dug his fingers in as hard as he could. “Have a dozen, have two dozen, we’ll be tripping over the little bastards. I don’t care.”

“Okay,” Shaun said merrily from the side. “Altair, is there anything else you want?”

There were a lot of things Altair wanted, most of them revolved around smashing his fist into Malik’s placid face and a few of them revolved around finding a flat surface to pin Malik to. But none of them could be transferred into words that made sense spoken out loud. He stared at Malik until the rage in his chest had dropped to a steady boil in his gut and then he straightened up. He could think rationally; think beyond the next ten minutes of his life to the possibilities that awaited him. (He could think of unlimited money and maids and fancy clothes and lawyer friends that showed up in the middle of the night to resolve kidnapping disputes like it was so fucking commonplace.) 

“Anything,” Shaun prompted him.

“I want a bike,” Altair said. Because he’d never had one.

Malik’s face was precious to look at, the regret in his eyes that tore at his mouth until he was frowning at his own knees. It was satisfying to see, (albeit far too late), and Altair wanted to shake him because he didn’t need anyone’s pity. “No objections,” Malik said. And then in the very next breath, “therapy. I want Altair to go to therapy.”

“You can’t force someone to go to therapy, Malik,” Shaun said.

“You can, actually. But more to the point, you,” he looked at Altair, “will benefit from it. What has happened to you up to this point in your life will not go away because you have nearly unlimited resources at your fingertips. This thing that’s going to grow between us will not be enough to make every other bad thing that’s happened to fade away.”

“I won’t hurt your kid, Malik,” Altair said. Because he could feel it hovering around him like an unspoken thing. 

Shaun was sitting there with his pen poised over paper. “Are you agreeing to go to therapy? I hate to hurry this along but I can’t imagine we have a lot of time left.”

“Fine,” Altair said. “I want my brother taken care of. Not just a place to live and money to waste but school, a job, a future that he can pass on to his kids if he has any.” He couldn’t stop staring at Malik, like if he looked away for a second something would break. (Like, maybe, he was really seeing Malik for the first time now.)

“No objections,” Malik said. “You have to come to the parties and you can’t say malicious things about me while you’re there.”

Shaun made a face.

“Parties?” Altair repeated.

“There are a lot of parties. Client parties, work parties, family parties. There are brunches, lunches and dinners. Then there are functions to attend at Tazim’s school, photo opportunities that are demanded of members of my family and lest we forget, your rags to riches story that will grace the headlines eventually. I will do my best to hold off the press as long as possible but it is really inevitable.”

“That’s a lot of public appearances,” Shaun said. 

Altair looked at Malik and Malik looked at him and Shaun made a disgruntled sighing sound to the side. “I’ll go to the majority of them,” he said.

“Family and school events should be given priority,” Malik said back.

“Fine,” Altair said.

Shaun scribbled something on his paper. Then he said, “well, how about we get this tape off and the two of you can go…upstairs for a little while. Maria will be here any moment and I’m sure she’ll be more than happy to handle whatever armed thugs are being sent to collect the money.” 

Altair picked up the knife off the table and used his thumb to flick it open without looking at it. Shaun flinched but Malik just tipped his head back against the chair and stared at him. The blade went through the tape efficiently (if not easily) and Malik’s body pulling away from the wood he’d been stuck to made a sort of sucking sound. Altair dropped the knife to the side when he was finished with it and stood up in time with Malik getting to his feet. The bastard was a nearly unperceivable half inch taller than him.

“Upstairs,” Shaun repeated from the side.

“Not until I have my brother,” Altair said. 

Malik’s forehead knocked against his as his eyes slid closed. It was all at once as if a great fatigue struck him. Both of his hands (how novel) were resting hot-and-welcome around Altair’s waist as he made a sadly amused noise in his throat. “I’m going to take a shower.” Then he slid away from him, grabbed the black bag off the table and shuffled out the door with the long strips of tape trailing on the floor behind him.

\--

Maria was upstairs when Malik finished dragging his exhausted body up the steps (and away from Altair). She was leaning against the bannister with a scowling-smirk on her face as she used her thumb to twist her ring around her finger. “So you got kidnapped and you couldn’t figure out a way to tell me over the phone?”

“I had it under control,” he said.

She looked at the tape hanging off his ripped shirt, the pinkness of his recently slapped face and the purple exhaustion that had to be heavy beneath his eyes. “Is he cute?” she said.

“No. He isn’t cute but he is very attractive.”

Her hum was pleased-for-him. “Any guesses about who sent him?”

“That’s not my area but he seemed very insistent that if he paid his fees he’d be free.” Malik waved a hand down the stairs toward the whole debacle. “Some armed thugs are due to show up any minute. Is he in his bed?”

“Yes,” Maria said. “That kid could sleep through a train wreck. Go take a shower, sugar cube.” She slapped him on the butt and went around him to jog down the stairs.

Malik went and kissed Tazim’s forehead before he went to the shower. By the time he stood in the bathroom looking down at Altair’s discarded jeans he had reached a point of surreal exhaustion that bordered on living a hallucination. “Fuck,” he said to the jeans. 

\--

Altair cleaned up the mess. Shaun watched him with cautious horror. But it was a mess and it was a mess that he’d made. So he put the chairs back in the kitchen, moved the table back to the room with the fireplace. 

A woman showed up as he was carrying the stack of dishes to the kitchen. It had to have been Maria—now with far shorter hair than in her photographs. She didn’t look confused at what he was doing the way Shaun did as he followed Altair in semi-circles around the house. She stood in the wide doorway between the central hall and the fireplace room with her back to the door and her thumb spinning a ring on her finger. 

Shaun marched back and forth after him, concerned and unhelpful. 

“Stop,” Maria finally said. She reached out and grabbed Altair-not-Shaun. Her hand was small around his arm but it was strong. There was a sympathetic tilt to her head as she gripped both of his arms and held him in place. “Think it through. We have the money, your brother is safe. They haven’t gotten to him yet or they would have said they had him. They’ve never hurt him. They always hurt you.”

“So?” Altair said.

“Where’s the money Shaun?” Maria said.

Shaun left to retrieve the money (apparently hidden somewhere in the house) and that left Maria and him standing in a doorway near the front door and the whole of the empty-quiet-house around them. She had sympathy but she didn’t have pity when she dropped her hands away from his arms. 

“Tell me the name of the man who hit you.”

Secrecy had been laid into his skin since the moment he was deposited in the old man’s home for orphans and given to the unhappy matron responsible for raising wayward little boys. Nobody talked, nobody told, nobody asked because nobody cared. Altair’s jaw was clenched so tight he couldn’t have said a word even if he had wanted to (which he didn’t). 

“Well, when you’re ready.” Then she pushed him toward the stairs. “Go find him. Fuck, sleep. The family will be here in a few hours.”

Altair stalled after being pushed two steps and turned back to look at her, “I want to see my brother.”

“As soon as he’s here,” Maria promised. Then she put two hands against his back and pushed him harder. “Tell me how he does sucking dick, huh? He’s terrible at giving head.” Then she smiled at his frown as she turned away from him and went back to waiting by the door. 

\--

Altair was in his bedroom when he got out of the shower. Sitting on the end of his bed idly toying with the loose legs of the pajama pants he was wearing and looking around at the walls. Removed of extenuating circumstances, he looked painfully young and overwhelmed. “This is real,” he said.

“Yeah,” Malik said. He was wearing nothing save for his skin and the last drops of water falling out of his hair down his neck and shoulders. The heat of the shower had made him drowsy but Altair’s passive glance at his body made a vibrant wash of alertness roll through his body. “I’m still grappling with that myself.”

“Maria seems…insistent,” Altair said. 

Malik chuckled at that. “Sex?” 

Altair’s smile was a nervous laugh. “Well, I want to but I can’t shake the feeling that we’re still going to be fighting about who tops when your family gets here.” He looked back at the bed, the stack of pillows and the smoothed out duvet then back at Malik, down his naked body to stare pointedly at his dick. 

“Well, look at you. Clearly you should lay down and let me take care of you.” It was meant to be a joke but the idea of it was a dirty thrill in his gut that made his hands tighten for want of it. He took a step forward and Altair looked up at him with a sly-disbelieving-smile on his face. 

“I just don’t believe that will be as relaxing as you’re making it out to be,” Altair said. He reached out to curl a hand around Malik’s waist and bring him to stand in between his spread legs. His mouth was wet-and-soft against his chest, his breath a breeze of heated air across his nipple. Malik ran his hands through Altair’s sticky-sweat-damp hair and down his back where the skin was smooth without bruises. “How about I lay back and you ride me?” His teeth were blunt and sharp against Malik’s stiffening nipple.

“Yeah,” Malik said. He reached down and got his hands under Altair’s arms to pick him up and throw him back across the bed. Then he pulled he pants down off his skinny legs and dropped them on the floor. The full glorious stretch of Altair’s naked skin was a dizzying sight to behold. In any other circumstances, Malik might even have taken the time to full appreciate it instead of clamor up to straddle his thighs. He kissed Altair again with every intention to ease into it and had no control over anything as soon as Altair’s hands grabbed his hips to drag him forward so they were dick-to-dick and groaning in unison. 

Altair’s fingers were tight-as-hell across his skin as they rutted like idiots against one another’s bare skin, mindless (at last) against the onslaught of instinct. They lasted a minute (at most) and the unbelievable intensity of the long-denied orgasm was enough to make Malik see stars and left Altair gasping for air. 

“Oh my God,” Altair said.

Malik nodded. “Sleep. We can sleep now?”

“Blankets?” Altair said.

Malik made a vague motion toward the blankets they were laying on and even gave a valiant effort toward pulling some of them over their bodies. Altair grumbled when the motion put pressure on his bruises and Malik rolled most of the way to the side with just an arm and leg across his body. The air was warm and no unpleasant and everything was beautiful-and-perfect.

\--

Altair woke up. 

There was a curt knock at the door. But there was a body lying across his and walls and a bed and everything that looked nothing at all like something familiar. The dizzying disorientation left him gaping at the person who was blinking unhappily at him. Malik looked like a disgruntled owl with his hair sticking up like unruly feathers and his eyes round-and-dark before he looked around the room like he expected to find the source of Altair’s confusion. 

Then there was the knock again. And the weight of a body pressed against it. “Look, we’ve got the brother and your mom and the kid quarantined downstairs in the kitchen. Now, your mother understands what you’re doing but the brother skipped sex ed in school and Tazim is concerned you’re dead.” Maria’s voice was distinctly recognizable even through the heavy wooden door. “It’s nine in the morning, get up.”

Malik sat up with a surly frown and a dark shadow across his jaw and cheeks where he obviously needed to shave. He scowled at the door and then said, “we’re coming.”

“Yes, well when you’re done with that if you could show your faces that’d be great.” Then Maria was gone. 

Altair pulled his body away from Malik’s and sat up. Every part of him was stiff and sore from exertion or exhaustion. There was a dried crust of last night’s somewhat less than spectacular attempt at sex on his stomach and chest and long pink lines from sleeping too hard in one position where Malik had laid on him. “Your friends are sex obsessed,” Altair said softly.

“Yes they are,” Malik said. “Especially her. She’s not wrong though. I think I get a week off work after we make it to the courthouse.” He yawned and flopped backward onto the pillows at the head of the bed. His legs—generously covered in dark hair—spread open so he could see Altair and maybe just so he could hold out his arms and curl his fingers inward like an invitation for every illicit act everyone already assumed they were doing. 

“This is real though,” Altair said.

“Real but not yet legally binding,” Malik said. “In fact, according to the ridiculous, long standing law set up somewhere in the dark ages, I don’t we’re even officially considered soul mates until one of us dicks the other.”

“What about lesbians?” 

Malik shrugged, “I guess they don’t exist.”

Altair rocked up onto his knees and crawled up between the easy splay of Malik’s thighs. He sat on his knees and rubbed his hands up and down the rough-hairy length of his legs from knee to hip. “I’m not sure I can do this.”

“It can’t be that hard,” Malik said. “Pretty sure it’s very similar to having sex with a woman except dicks are less confusing than clits.” But the amused arrogance gave way with a solemn sigh. “I’m the worst part of my family, Altair.” 

“Look at what I did to you,” Altair said. He spread his fingers across the smooth and tight stretch of Malik’s belly, was sure to drag his thumbs across the heated-sensitive skin of the sides of his hardening dick. He was leaning forward (stiff and hurting) until his hands were against the bed under Malik’s arms and they were nose-to-nose again. “My ribs hurt,” he said.

“A criminal and a tease,” Malik said. He put his arm around Altair and rolled them over. He was sitting across Altair’s thighs, looking down at him with a confusing smile of fondness. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” Altair said. He was expecting the hard edge of passion the way it had been the night before but not the soft way Malik’s hand cupped around his face and the hesitancy of the kiss barely pressing against his mouth. Every motion he made was very deliberate, the teasing pressure of his mouth against Altair’s, the fleeting brush of his tongue (there-and-gone-again) and the gentle brush of his hand all along Altair’s good side. His hips started rocking when Altair caught him by the face and licked the awful taste of sleep out of his mouth. Malik’s body wasn’t overly muscled, his touch wasn’t heavy handed but there was a great power in the steady cadence of motion he employed. 

\--

Malik didn’t expect to be seduced by Altair’s sweet-kisses and little-whimpers of noise. He had convinced himself in between kisses and thoughts that he was going to take-what-was-his (like every good cave man ever) but by the time he pulled away long enough to retrieve the bag of necessities, he wanted nothing so much as he wanted to wring those sounds out of Altair. His hand on Altair’s dick warranted a bitten-lip-blushing-pink moan; just imagine what he could do with his whole body. 

He rolled the condom down Altair’s dick and leaned forward to kiss him because his lips were reddened-from kissing and his eyes were half-lidded with desire. Malik wanted to touch every single part of him and found himself aggravated by the whole off limits section of Altair’s body where someone had hurt him. 

It wasn’t a shock (perhaps a surprise) when Altair’s fingers pressed against his hole all slippery and slick. Altair’s voice was a low, embarrassed sound when he said, “I really don’t know what I’m doing.” But his finger pressed _in_ and the two of them were staring at one another like idiots at the obvious conclusion. “That is so tight.”

“Well, consider its function,” Malik said. He smiled at the displeased wrinkle of Altair’s nose. Then he kissed him again, harder this time, tasted the tinge of blood from the split in his lip and let the feeling of misplaced anger recoil in his gut. “Fuck,” he gasped when the slippery fingers slid out of him. He pushed himself up to sitting and lifted up. It was his-and-Altair’s fumbling hands and panted breaths, all of their combined ignorance, just to figure out how to get the dick in his ass. They were giggling like idiots when they finally figured it out, Altair’s hips pushing up and Malik pushing down and the sudden give of his body that stole all of his breath for a split second. 

Altair’s eyes went round and his mouth dropped open. Malik said, “oh fuck,” far louder than he’d intended and the two of them were helpless with hysterical laughter. 

“Stop,” Altair wheezed with a hand across his bruised side, “stop.”

Malik leaned his weight back and wasn’t sure it was an improvement when Altair sank deeper into him. He closed his eyes at the sensation and when he opened them found Altair looking at him with that singular intensity gone all ruddy and needy. His hands were gripping at Malik’s thighs as he bit his lower lip and didn’t ask-or-demand anything. “Don’t try to last,” Malik said, “we’ll do this right next time.” Then he straightened up again and started rocking against Altair. He stroked his own dick in time with the motion of his hips and watched Altair unravel with a series of low moans and needy little breaths. By the time Altair started fucking up into him, Malik was so-fucking-close (and wasn’t that ridiculous) that the rest of the world was getting fuzzy save for the feeling of Altair moving in him and his own hand slipping up-down his dick. 

“Fuck,” he said. 

Altair came first with a groan and a stuttering jerk of his hips. He was boneless and floppy for a moment and then (perhaps only just then) aware of Malik’s impatient hand pulling at his own dick. He put his hand over Malik’s and started thrusting up into him again, faster-and-more intent than the lazy orgasm of only moments ago. “Come on,” Altair said (chin to chest), “do it.”

Malik came so hard his body bowed forward on itself and it was only instinct that kept him from banging their heads together. They were panting together in the aftermath, aware of the sticky mess they made. He pulled off Altair and looked at his perfect little smile. 

“Eventually, we’ll get better at this sex thing,” Altair said.

“We just need to practice,” Malik said. He kissed Altair again and then pushed away from him. “But first, we have to go deal with the family.”

\--

Altair wasn’t a coward. He’d walked into beatings with his head-held-high and a defiant grit of his teeth. He’d showered and dressed and followed Malik out of the relative (if somewhat still surreal) safety of his bedroom to the unknown world beyond it. He obediently padded down the stairs and through the empty rooms to the kitchen that seemed to the center of the most delicious smell in the world.

It was Desmond he saw first. His stupid kid brother with his crooked smile and his graying-white-hoodie sitting on a barstool by the counter with a grin on his face and a half-told story coming to a full stop as he saw Altair. He looked good, (he looked the same as he had yesterday), wholly untouched by the ordeal he most likely wasn’t even aware had happened. His ignorant little smile seemed just slightly less naïve as he got up and walked over to hug him. Both of his arms were hurtful on Altair’s sore body and the vicious tightness of his hug cut into the bruises like knives. But the wet-drag of his breath made Altair’s arms go around him compulsively. “I hope you know these people because they kidnapped me in a helicopter.”

Altair closed his eyes against that particular brand of torture and then pulled away from Desmond. He turned to motion at Malik and found him standing a few feet away with a skinny-little boy perched on his bent arm eying him with careful consideration. “Uh, Desmond this is Malik. My soul mate, as it turns out. Malik, Desmond my brother.”

Malik put his hand out to shake Desmond’s. “Good to meet you. This is Tazim. Tazim, this is Altair.”

Tazim wasn’t as gracious as his father, reserved his handshakes and judgment for a later time. But he did raise his hand and offer a careful wave before wiggling to his freedom and returning to the breakfast nook where he took his place by Maria. She ducked her head to whisper something in his ear. 

Then there was the woman dressed in the finest clothes that Altair had ever seen, resplendent and beautiful in a way he hadn’t ever had the imagination to consider before. She was tall—not quite as tall as him—and slim with a cheerful smile and two arms spread open to greet him. Her lips were soft when she kissed his cheek and her hands were even softer when they cupped his face.

“Welcome,” she said to him, “we are so very pleased to have you in our family.” But the look she gave Malik was all daggers. 

Desmond was making faces behind her back and Malik was trying but failing not to duck his head like a scolded child. Altair didn’t even know what to do with himself so he stood frozen in place (trying to figure out anything to do) and Malik slid a half-step closer to him and said, “breakfast first.”

“Shaun said your whole family was going to be here,” Altair said.

“Dinner,” Mother said. “At our house. Maria’s agreed to take care of your son for a week—a week is customary. Breakfast is prepared for you and there is a car waiting when you’re ready to go to the court.” She must have sensed how overwhelming it was because she stopped and then said, “traditions must be observed, Altair. After today, you will have the rest of your lives to sort it out. But today, live in this moment and enjoy it because it is beautiful.” Then she smiled at him the way his mother might have smiled at him (once upon a time). 

\--

Altair looked shell shocked all through breakfast. Malik stayed near him only long enough to be sure he wasn’t actually in shock before leaving him in the care of his brother (the idiot) and Maria (his most trusted friend) to see his mother to the door. They made it all the way to the front hall before she rounded on him with a furious flurry of skirts.

“I know,” Malik said before she could say a thing. 

His awareness of his own stupidity and her disapproval of his methods and means didn’t afford him any leniency. She narrowed her eyes at him. “That you know does not bring me comfort. But I am glad you have found him, at least. Perhaps he can teach you what we have failed to.” Then she kissed his cheek. “Enjoy this day, son.” Because the things she had to say would keep until she had time and space to say them. 

Malik went back to the kitchen and found Altair listening raptly to whatever story his brother was telling. He stood in the doorway a minute to watch it, the way Altair (even injured) had put himself bodily between Desmond and the nearest credible threat (Maria) and the way he watched Desmond with every bit of his concentration but had one hand on a table knife and his whole body poised to move at the smallest sign of danger. He didn’t sigh but look at Maria who was already ushering Tazim to his feet and toward the door. The boy was stomping in indignation but Maria put her hand against Malik’s chest. “Don’t look at him like that, he’s far more sturdy and well-built than you give him credit for and he won’t like the pity you’re wasting.” Then she kissed his cheek. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Malik said. He kissed Tazim’s reluctant little face good-bye and was left standing in his own kitchen feeling distinctly out of place. 

“So, tell me what really happened,” Desmond said, “because they just kept telling me you met at the park or something.” 

Altair looked at Malik and Malik sighed. “It was an escalator.”


	3. Chapter 3

Desmond made it all the way up to the exact moment Malik said ‘and then he stabbed me in the neck’ and didn’t even stay sitting for the grand finale of ‘I woke up taped to a chair’. He was on his feet with a great sweeping motion of classical impatience, hands in the air as disbelief fought a bloody war against pure _fury_ all across his face. “I can’t fucking believe you!” Desmond shouted at him.

Malik looked more shocked (and frightened) in that moment than he had in all the time Altair had him tied to a chair. 

“Believe me?” Altair repeated.

“You kidnapped someone? What the fuck was your plan if he didn’t turn out to be your soul mate? Were you just going to hold someone for ransom and _hope_ they didn’t say anything once you let them go? No—you know what, I don’t want to know. I can’t fucking believe you.”

Desmond did not want to know what the original plan; he wasn’t a fan of the details of things. Details were where all the sticky-little-pains and misplaced little indignities were hidden. Details like the price of passing on secrets to women with pretty faces and mixed loyalties. Desmond knew the broad strokes and the end figures but he never cared much about what the manual labor. 

“Me?” Altair shouted again. “You can’t believe me? I wouldn’t even be _here_ if you weren’t trading blow jobs and secrets with that _bitch_ again! You wouldn’t be here, you’d be gutted like a fish on the side of the road if I hadn’t done this.”

“Fuck you,” Desmond snapped. He was pacing in short-agitated strides, one hand rubbing through his hair and the other just hovering halfway between up and down. He rounded on Malik like he’d just remembered he existed and narrowed his eyes at him with more distrust than he’d ever mustered before in his life. 

Altair didn’t hit Desmond, not the way the sweet-Matron-mothers of the orphanage had hit him. It wasn’t some misplaced sense of chivalry about protecting kids younger and stupider than him but the single iron resolution he’d made (age eleven, suddenly responsible for a snot nosed baby). So he shoved Desmond away from Malik, two hands against the healthy bulk of his shoulders with the full of his weight to move Desmond two-three steps backward. “My plan was to do what I was told, Desmond. I get the money I was told to get. I go home. I wait until the old man decides if I was good enough or not. It doesn’t matter now, it’s over.”

“It’s over because suddenly you’re Cinderella?” Desmond said. He looked at Altair then, not at Malik. He put his hand on Altair’s face with all the sweet-indulgent condescension mirrored on his face. It wasn’t anger that twisted his face up like that but guilt and the what-ifs that weren’t. Desmond’s forehead was like a brick against his, heavy and hard. He closed his eyes and shook his head as far as he could while he was trying to knock their skulls together so hard they fused. “Please listen to me,” Desmond said. His eyes opened again and he looked at Altair. “I will never, ever be able to thank you enough for the things you have done for me. I will never know the things you gave up for me. So do not think I’m ungrateful when I say that I will literally kill you if you ever do anything this stupid ‘for me’ ever again. I’m not worth it.”

It was a half-laugh that burst out of his throat at the thought and Desmond looked offended-as-hell about it too. Altair said, “too late.”

Malik was frowning at the whole exchange whenever Altair disentangled himself from Desmond’s arms. The look exchanged between his brother and his new lover was nothing short of murderous. Plain possessive greed on Desmond’s face and a tactful arrogant ownership on Malik’s as they regarded one another. “You’re welcome to stay here until a suitable apartment can be found for you,” Malik said. 

Desmond sighed. “I can’t believe you.” It was directed at Altair, not Malik. 

“We should get dressed to go to the courthouse,” Malik said to him. It was so painfully monotone that Altair almost wanted to kick him in the shins. He didn’t, the way he didn’t look at Desmond’s furious scowl as he walked past him either.

\--

The strangest thing was, perhaps, the phantom sensation of wanting Altair so strongly that it ran across his skin like a breeze of too-cold air. There was nothing seductive or even passingly attractive about watching the (idiot) brother yell about the sacrifices made in his name or the reciprocal anger straightening Altair’s back. But it remained, a heavy coal in Malik’s gut. 

“So, there are—” Malik was started to say when they reached the master bedroom. He had intended to put his own personal longing for sex aside to be businesslike and indifferent to the scene he just witnessed. The limited knowledge he had of Altair led him to believe that the man would not like having emotional wounds laid bare for public consumption. (Not to mention, Altair seemed irrational about his brother on all accounts.) But there was Altair grabbing him by the shirt front and dragging him bodily up against him heedless of his injuries or the limitations of their individual bodies. Altair’s arms were thin across his shoulders and his mouth was warm-and-full and _insistent_ against his. Malik’s hands slid up his back, under his too-big-borrowed shirt to grip at his shoulders and crush him as close as skin and bones would allow.

Altair’s free arm reached out to swing the door shut and it clattered obnoxiously in the frame just seconds before Malik was shoved back against it. He opened his mouth to stage some attempt at a protest but then there was Altair getting shorter-and-shorter. His knees hit the floor with blunted thuds before his busy fingers were plucking at Malik’s waistband. 

“Hey,” Malik said. He pulled the shirt off Altair over his head and dropped it to the side. “Hey,” he said again when his pants were pulled abruptly to his knees. “Don’t get me wrong here.”

“Shut up,” Altair said. His tongue across his lips was a sin itself, all pink over irritated red. His eyes were half-lidded as he looked at Malik’s half-hardened dick with the critical eye of a man working out a serious engineering problem. “Unless you have a religious objection to blow jobs, it can wait.” Then he was one-hand stroking Malik’s dick and his wet-wet red mouth closing around the tip. It was far from the most practiced or proficient blow job he’d ever had but it was the first one that left him fumbling for a handhold against the sudden spinning in his own head. Altair’s lips were slick-but-chapped and his tongue was unsure about whether it wanted to be involved. His palm was too dry and his rhythm was thrown off but Malik’s body didn’t give a _damn_ about these minor mistakes. Because it was _Altair_ the single person in all of the world that his body (and soul) had been preprogrammed to desire-and-respond to with every single fiber of its being. 

“Oh fuck,” Malik said as his head went back. He had one hand in Altair’s short hair and the other with spread fingertips over his shoulder just following the motion of his body, thinking about nothing but the feverish _perfection_ of this imperfect moment. He managed a brief, rushed warning in the blinding seconds before orgasm and Altair grunted his acknowledgment but did not relent. It was after, with Malik’s knees going weak and Altair’s hands pulling him down until they were both on their knees and kissing with sloppy enthusiasm. “What do you want?” Malik asked. 

Altair’s answer was a hand on his shoulder shoving him back against the wall and the filthy splatter of semen across his belly. The pink of his face an intense shade as his mouth fell open and his eyes squeezed shut. 

They did not collapse but sit on their knees in their various states of debauchery, catching their breath and taking individual stock of the situation at hand. Altair looked vaguely embarrassed just before he said, “what were you saying about the courthouse?”

Malik let out a squeaky laughing sound. “We have to get dressed to go.”

“Right,” Altair said. He nodded his head and looked sheepishly at the streaks of his slipping down Malik’s stomach. “Maybe a shower first?”

\--

There was a side hallway that Altair had not found during his first inspection of the house. Malik led him out through it (while Altair tried very hard not to fidget with the belt he was wearing to keep Malik’s pants from falling off his ass while he walked), down a few steps and into a wide, flat garage large enough to house twelve cars. The lights flicked on automatically when they stepped into the room and the brilliant white lights reflected off the gleaming paint of the obscene number of vehicles. 

“The judge that my Mother favors,” Malik said, “the one that will grant us certification without the burden of a week of tests to prove ourselves, will undoubtedly say two things to you when we get to him. One of them will be that your request for a bicycle is ridiculous given the number of cars I own and the other is that he is quite certain I’m soulless.”

“You should consider being a better person,” Altair said softly. He tried very hard not to think anything bitter or angry about the pretentious display of wealth that he was witnessing (because, really, everything Malik owned was as good as his now). “I hear it makes people like you better.”

“The difference between a good person and a bad one is not how friendly they appear but the sum of their deeds. I am not a nice person, I will never argue that I am but I do try very hard to be a good person.” Then he motioned them toward the exit, away from the many available vehicles. “Mother left a car to take us. We’ll likely need to make a quick exit from the courthouse. There’s always a few hungry reporter types that hang out there looking for anything interesting.”

“What are you going to tell people about what happened?” Altair asked. He stuck his hands into the pockets in the pants and strolled along the wide pathway leading back toward the front door. The large turnabout driveway was empty save for one parked car Altair did not recognize and the second car that was obviously waiting for them. 

Malik held the door for him and swept his hand in toward the backseat of the car like a properly raised gentleman. Altair scowled at him. “Just get in the car,” Malik said. He got in after Altair and did not even have to tell the man in the driver’s seat where to take them before the car was moving. “I will not tell anyone what happened. Either tonight or tomorrow, Kadar—my brother—will show up to gather the actual facts of what happened and work with us to prepare the public statement. As I’ve said, you are safe from legal repercussions for what you’ve done but public opinion is often times more brutal.”

“It doesn’t help that I’ve probably lifted the wallets of half this damn city at one point or another,” Altair said. He looked out the window at the tree-lined streets that took them out of the safe little neighborhood where Malik’s massive house was located and back out into the more central part of the city. He picked at the seam of the pants and tried very hard not to think about anything but the comforting knowledge that his debts were paid and he was free. (Well, free from the old man.) “Sorry about Desmond,” he said when he could think of nothing else to say.

“Sorry about everything that is going to happen today,” Malik said back. There was no smile on his face to make the words seem as appropriate ridiculous as they sounded. He looked away from his own window to look at Altair instead. “I guarantee you that at some point today you will sincerely wish you had never had the misfortune of meeting me. If not before, definitely by the time my perverted Aunt tries to give you sex tips.”

“I thought it was just dinner,” Altair said.

“Well, it is dinner. Dinner with about seventy of the closest relatives that live in the city or surrounding area that will be bringing us gifts and well wishes. There will probably be food there but we won’t have time to eat any of it because, as the happy couple, we are obligated to thank everyone and personally accept their gifts and congratulations.”

“Gifts?” Altair asked. “How the hell are they already going to have gifts? How would they even know what to get?”

“They’re house warming and new soul mate gifts, they are the most generic and useless things you can imagine. The good news is that we’ll have lots of rice cookers and bread makers if either of those things appeal to you. Kadar will give us a gift card to a sex shop, if that’s your thing.” Malik was back to looking out the window. The streets of this part of town were sparkling clean and every building seemed to straighten with renewed importance as they moved steadily closer to the courthouse. Malik leaned forward in the universal body language of a man about to jump out of a moving vehicle. “Stay right next to me and try not to look conspicuous.”

“What?” Altair asked. But Malik was out of the car as soon as it slowed by a curb and Altair had to scramble to follow after him. They climbed an eternity of stairs that parted in the center for a massive statue of justice herself holding out a set of scales with a blindfold over her eyes. Altair was looking up at her rather than looking forward and nearly fell over his own feet before Malik took his hand and pulled him along faster. 

There was a line of people in the front of the courthouse and metal detectors with unhappy security officers reminding people to remove metal watches. Malik ducked to the side with a nod at one of the men in uniform before he pulled Altair ahead of the line and into the massive interior of the church. 

“Mr. Al-Sayf,” a plump little woman with bright-blonde hair said as soon as they were inside. She motioned him over and Malik went with wide-purposeful strides that Altair couldn’t copy. “You came at the perfect time. Your Mother let us know this morning that you would be here at some point today—congratulations—and your partner already faxed us a copy of your preliminary agreement.” She took them up a flight of stairs and held the door for them on the second floor. Everything was depressingly quiet in the courthouse, as if all the sound had been sucked out, save for the sound of her heels against the floor as she led them along. “Wait here a moment,” she said before she disappeared in through a set of doors.

“Is this like getting married?” Altair asked.

Malik looked offended at the notion. “No, getting married is a lesser form of what we’re doing. Marriage is willfully saying that you want to cohabitate with someone who is not your soul mate. It has some similarities but it’s basically the legal equivalent of seven minutes in heaven. Marriages are largely considered temporary, ridiculous and wasteful by most people. In fact, I received a very eloquent death threat from a group that feels marriages are immoral and anyone entering into them should be immediately executed.”

“But you end marriages,” Altair said. Because that’s what Malik did, he dissolved marriages and set up soul mates where wives and husbands once were. “Why would they threaten you when you’re doing what they want on a less drastic scale?”

“Logic and extreme views never coexist. Marriage doesn’t hurt anyone. Some people would argue that they’re the truest expression of love because they represent a logical, individual choice to share your life with someone that you aren’t predestined to love.” Malik fixed his tie and looked impatiently at his watch. “Also, we have to buy you clothes before we go back home.”

“What would you argue?” Altair asked.

“I would argue that every person has the right to make their own choice. I _believe_ that soul mates are only successful when the desire to strengthen the bond between them is mutual. I was raised to believe that soul mates are proof that our creator loves us. It’s a nice thought, but it’s not a very practical one.” Then the doors were opening and the woman was ushering them in and down another hallway into a judge’s chambers.

The judge was laughing behind his desk. “We were all sure you’d sold your soul to the devil!” he said.

Malik’s smile was strained-and-crooked on his face. “As it turns out, I did not.”

The judge laughed again. “Bless you for making it out of the bedroom.” Then he looked down at the papers in his hand with a serious expression and a subtle mumbling motion to his lips. “A bicycle?” he said, “didn’t you tell him about your cars, Malik?”

Malik just turned to look at Altair with the most purposeful expression of ‘see, I told you so’ ever displayed on a human face. 

\--

Escaping the courthouse was not so much a matter of elegance and finesse as it was a mad dash away from the cluster of reporters drinking coffee and discussing nonsense that were camped outside of the main exit. Altair ran with far more grace than Malik but he tumbled into the car like a wreck-in-progress. 

“Where to?” the driver asked.

“Clothes,” Malik said. There were only so many places they shopped (their loyalty given to whichever store had his mother’s favor at the moment). He looked at Altair’s disheveled appearance, the looseness of the shirt and pants and the awkward cut of the suit jacket. It was a mess but there was nobody to impress with any urgency. “Casual clothes,” he said.

Altair straightened himself on the seat. “Are you trying to tell me you don’t like the clothes I was wearing when we met?”

“I’m trying to tell you that you’ll be lucky to make it out of the bedroom after tonight, much less somewhere to pick up whatever clothes you already own.” There was a definite, pleasing sort of heat knowing that Altair was tied to him for the rest of eternity and that there was _proof_ in the form of legal contracts and public record. It was a primal feeling that made his higher brain function break apart into basic demands like (touch) and (fuck). “That is assuming you’re allowed to keep whatever you had before.”

“None of it was mine,” Altair said off-handedly. “That was always made clear. Is this going to take a long time?”

“Hopefully not,” Malik said. They lapsed into tense silence, Altair with two fingers twisting in the loose fabric of his pants and Malik trying very hard not to stare openly at him. The very idea attaining any real state of arousal should have been laughable considering how he’d already had three orgasms in (ten?) hours. But there it was, a persistently obnoxious notion that Altair-was-there-(and-his). 

Altair’s (full, attractive, pink) lips slid up into a smirk just before they reached their destination. “You are so easy to distract,” he said.

“You are so distracting,” he said. But it was a terrible comeback. Altair was nice enough not to point out how pathetic an attempt it was as they got out of the car. The driver pulled out a magazine and his phone to wait them out. “The goal is to get everything we need as quickly as possible. What sizes do you wear?”

Altair looked at him as if he were insane, stopped short just outside the door to glance down at the borrowed clothes he was wearing. “Smaller than you,” he said. “That’s all I’ve got.”

Malik sighed. “This is going to take forever.” Then he pulled open the door and waited for Altair to go inside. They were barely in the interior before they were greeted enthusiastically by a sales woman with mothering arms that smiled indulgently at Altair for not knowing his own size and whisked them off to a dressing room big enough for a couch and two chairs. 

“She gave me a drink,” Altair said when they were by themselves. He had a bottle of water in his hand that seemed to confound him. “She asked me if I wanted a snack.”

Malik flopped back onto the couch. “Your former research department was not big into sharing details with you, were they?”

“They told me your name and where I could find you. What else was relevant?” 

Everything else was relevant. “I told you my family was far more powerful than whoever sent you, Altair. My family, through blood or bonding, owns this city. We have hold the majority of the wealth, connections, political and social power in this city and this state and in several over cities around the world. This,” he motioned at the water bottle Altair was still staring at with some confusion, “is the rest of your life. My advice to you is to be gracious but modest.”

Altair hadn’t thought of anything to say to that (or managed to do anything but hold the water bottle) before the saleswoman was back flagged by two younger saleswomen carrying armloads of clothes. 

“I brought a small sampling,” the woman (Yvette?) said. “What would you like to start with?”

“Uh,” Altair said.

“Shirts,” Malik threw out there. He reached over far enough to take the water bottle out of Altair’s hand and watched (with little amusement considering how unnerved Altair was about it all) as the clothes were laid out across the low table across from the couch. Yvette was sorting out a few shirts to try on for size while Altair unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged it back off his shoulders. He tugged the undershirt off and dropped it to the side about the time that Yvette straightened up and looked at him. 

The effect was awe-inspiring in much the same way a train wreck was impossible to look away from. She smiled at his face in the brief seconds before the bright red-rimmed color of the bruises trailing from his collarbone to his hip drew her eyes downward. The poorly contained noise of shock that blurted out of her mouth before she clamped her teeth against it was loud enough to echo off the mirrors in the room. Her face drained of all color as she slapped her hand across her mouth and turned to look at Malik with wide-helpless eyes. When she looked back at Altair was just staring at her with all that petty defiance he’d had the night before, drinking Malik’s beer in front of him while they argued over money. “I’m sorry,” Yvette said almost instantly after. “I—that was unprofessional. I’m sorry.”

Altair clearly did not have any idea how to respond to her or the two other people in the room that were staring openly into the mirrored reflection. 

“Thank you for the apology,” Malik said. “I think we can manage it from here. We’ll call if we need anything.”

Yvette was clearly grateful for the reprieve because she nodded her head sharply and smiled with pink-embarrassment on her cheeks. “Of course.” Then she fled the room like there was a fire.

Altair watched her go until she was out of the room and then turned back to look at him. “Aren’t you worried they’re going to think you did this?”

“No,” Malik said. He got up to go grab some of the clothes they had to sort through but Altair shoved him back down onto the couch with both hands on his shoulders. The couch hit the wall with a hollow noise and Malik opened his mouth to ask what the hell Altair was doing but there he was sliding into Malik’s lap. A better man (a more sane man) might have offered all the appropriate objections but Malik was pulling Altair as close as he could get him. 

\--

Escaping the clothes store was far less of a hassle than escaping the courthouse. They stopped at a fast food place to get (terribly unhealthy, Malik said) food and were delivered back to Malik’s home where the single car in the drive had multiplied to three. 

Malik made a mean face at it and grabbed half of the obscene number of bags of clothes they’d bought. “Any chance Desmond would believe someone that showed up and said they were going to take him to buy some clothes for tonight?”

“Is that person a blonde woman he wants to sleep with?” Altair asked.

“No. More likely than not it’s a hairy gentleman.”

They went in through the front door and found the man Malik was talking about standing at the bottom of the stairs shaking his head sadly at a very baby-faced looking man about six inches shorter than Malik with the exact same skin tone, hair color and nose. The (younger) man turned to Malik with a toothy grin and both arms held out as a greeting. “I heard the lion tamer we sent for finally arrived!”

“Fuck you,” Malik said affectionately.

“That’s a thing you do now, huh?” the man said. He hugged Malik and then motioned up the stairs. “We have been trying to convince Desmond that we are not here to harm him in any way and he has not yet been convinced.”

Altair hovered out of the way, looked at the tall man with the scruffy beard that glanced at him with a perplexing mixture of genuine greeting and indifferent assessment. “You should have brought a helicopter, he would have gone with you.”

“Kadar, Altair. Altair, Kadar—my brother. And the hairy one is Rauf.” 

“Hello Altair,” Kadar said. “We could have brought the helicopter but without my Mother, it’s not quite as impressive a weapon as you might think. Could you perhaps tell your brother that we’re not here to kidnap him? We just want to get him some clothing and other essentials.”

Desmond was standing at the top of the stairs, looking distinctly surly. He must have heard the entire exchange because he was already starting down the stairs before Altair had the chance to say anything. “Did you remember to get glass slippers?” he said when he was at the bottom.

“Oh shit,” Malik mumbled to the side. “I forgot shoes.”

“How could you forget shoes?” Kadar said back. “Never mind, I’m amazed practicality overruled your dick long enough for you to remember clothes. Where did you go and what did you do while you were there?” 

Malik just glared at his brother who sighed. “Go away,” Malik said.

Desmond was shifting on his feet a few feet from Altair, looking caught between being obedient and throwing a fit for the hell of it. He finally looked right at Altair and cleared his throat, “sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have…yelled at you. But I meant what I said. Be selfish. Stop thinking about me.”

“Stop fucking things up,” Altair said, “and I’ll stop fixing them.” It was as close to an apology as they were likely to get. Desmond sidled close enough to hug him with a loose grip over his injured side and then shuffled backward again.

“We’ll probably have him the rest of the day,” Kadar said. “Do you want me to find shoes? Do you know what size shoes you wear? Preference about what kind? Do you know what size shoe he wears?” Kadar asked Desmond.

“We share shoes,” Desmond said.

“I don’t care,” Altair said. He had shoes, he was wearing them, and they were still new enough they weren’t falling apart. His indifference was accepted at face value and then Kadar was motioning Desmond out of the house with Rauf following after them looking more like a body guard than a personal shopping assistant. 

They were alone again in seconds and Malik motioned toward the stairs. “Bed?”

“Yes,” Altair said. Then they were running up the stairs like idiots, throwing the bags they were carrying wherever they landed.

\--

Malik woke up to find Altair gone from bed. It was late-afternoon by the slant of the shadows coming in through the window over his bed. He stretched out across the bed, felt for any spot of warmth and found everywhere to be cool. Altair must have left bed quite a while ago and Malik had slept through it. He kicked the blankets off, dug his day-off jeans out from the bottom drawer of the dresser and pulled them on as he went looking for Altair.

He was not in the upstairs rooms (why would he be, really?) or in the kitchen. There was a disturbance of things in the pantry that indicated someone had been there after the maid. Malik grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and drank it as he did a casual tour of the downstairs. His office—the only room the maid was not permitted to touch—was in disarray. There was a spill of paperclips across the top of the desk that reeked of childish impotency and rather than make him angry, it brought a vague smile to his face. The door to the garage was still locked. The billiards room was as pristine as the last time Malik had left it, which sent him down the hall to the den. It was the only room in his house that wasn’t available for public use, the room where he sacked out on Saturday mornings with Tazim and watched cartoons while they ate donuts and cereal. 

Altair was sleeping on the couch, his bare back a delicate curl of bones and sinew half hidden by the pile of blankets he’d pulled over himself. He hadn’t found the pillows (tucked in a side cabinet) but used his arm as one. The sound of the door opening had clearly caused him to wake up because he rolled half onto his back while stretching and blinking into the light. He didn’t look guilt or apologetic with a sleepy smile on his face.

“Do I snore?” Malik said.

Altair had to wiggle to lay flat on his back and draped both of his arms over the arm of the chair. “No,” he said, “the bed’s too big, I couldn’t sleep.”

“Ah,” Malik said. “Come to the kitchen, I’ll make you something to eat.”

“You cook?” Altair mumbled. 

“I do.” He watched Altair as he made an attempt at impressed eyebrows but mostly ended up looking as if he were already falling asleep again. Then he turned to go to the kitchen, resolved to come back to get him after the food was ready.

\--

Altair woke up in time to eat (kibbeh, so Malik said) and take a shower (interrupted by Malik and his fantastic naked body) before he had to get dressed to go meet seventy of Malik’s closest relatives. He was crouching (naked) in the center of a tornado of bags full of clothes he barely remembered buying. “What the hell should I wear?”

“Whatever you want,” Malik called back from his massive closet. He was already half-dressed in black pants and an unbuttoned white shirt. Nothing that Altair had gotten from the store they went to compared. Malik seemed to realize he was being stared at with disbelief because he came back to the doorway of the closet. “Wear what you are comfortable in. This is the only chance you’ll have to wear whatever you want to a family function, so seize the opportunity.”

That was how Altair ended up wearing some grayish jeans with a T-shirt and a white zipper jacket. He was practically an eyesore amid the colorful swish of fine clothes that drifted in and out of the massive great room where Malik’s Mother had ushered them as soon as they showed their faces at the door. She had put both of her hands on Altair’s shoulders and pulled him slowly-but-surely along, chatting at him about how pleased she was he could make it and how he shouldn’t be overwhelmed.

But the room was massive and it was filled with people, tables and _things_. A banquet table with a host of servers at one end, a long white table (or tables, perhaps) at the head of the room with piles of gifts in a variety of wrappings. Set somewhere in the center were two chairs with tall backs and decorative white fluffy things that Altair assumed were meant for him-and-Malik. 

Malik was immediately pulled sideways by his Mother and Altair was momentarily-alone just seconds before Maria slid up against his side with her arm daintily slipping around his. Her smile was as sweetly insincere as the blush of makeup she wore. Her dress was a slim-fitting, pretty pinkish color that seemed drastically out of place with what little he knew about her.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hello,” she said. She tugged at him and they fell into a slow walk toward the chairs he assumed were meant for him. “Smile and nod at everyone who talks to you. They are all basically good people, but more importantly, they respect and love the man that you’ve quite suddenly found yourself bound to.”

“What are you?” Altair asked when they reached the space behind the table and she let go of his arm to hover at the end by a massive silver package with a shimmery white bow. 

“I take care of things.” 

Altair looked at the great swarm of people, at how they were all held back by some invisible barrier of polite distance, and then back at her. “Things like armed thugs and money transfers? Is that common?”

Maria shrugged. “You’re the first person to kidnap Malik, if that’s what you mean. Most of the threats made against Malik aren’t as credible as yours.” She shifted on her feet and the skirt swayed against her legs. Her smile never faltered when she said, “I know where you came from because I came from somewhere very close to it, Altair. I’m not going to nag you for details that you don’t feel like you can share but if you ever get there. If you ever need someone in this madness that gets it—I’m here. And if you ever want to dole out a little justice, I’m here.” She leaned forward and kissed his cheek before retreating again. 

\--

Tazim found him when Malik was on his way to taking his place behind the table. His shriek of joy was very similar to war cry as he streaked through a sea of adults milling around politely waiting for Malik to show up. Maria had him dressed in most a suit which explained why his Mother was simmering with vague fury whenever she caught sight of Maria or Tazim. He had lost his tie already and his vest looked one button short of being completely removed, his shoes had gone missing and his socks were neon mismatched colors. 

“Tazim,” he said.

“This was all we had,” was the answer before the reproach could be fully spoken. “Maria said we couldn’t go back to the house to get my right clothes because you were busy. Is Altair going to live with us now?” His two hands were on his little hips as he looked up at him.

“Yes.”

Tazim’s eyes (so like his mother’s) squinted at him and then he did an abrupt about-face and took off at a jog toward where Altair was standing awkwardly behind the table. Any other boy might have gone around the long drape over the table but Tazim fell to his knees and skidded under it, emerging victorious from the other side just a few feet from where Altair was standing. 

“—a dog,” was what Tazim was saying when Malik made it over to where he had started a negotiation with Altair. “Dad says that he gets two votes because he’s bigger and he doesn’t want a dog. But Nanna said that you’re part of our family now and two,” he held up two fingers, “votes for you and one vote,” another finger, “votes for me is three votes and if you get me a dog, I’ll consider letting you stay.” 

“What kind of dog,” Altair asked.

“Something big enough to play fetch with. Two of them!” Tazim added quickly. Then he tried to play it cool, one bony elbow against the high side of the chair with a lean to his body. “Two dogs. It’s a good deal, you should take it.”

Altair was smiling (at least), “I’ll have to think it over and get back to you.”

Tazim must have seen Maria sweeping in behind him because he went from calmly accepting this answer to a sudden hurried motion that failed to allow him to escape. Her arm around his midsection pulled him off his feet and her lips were moving against his ear as he hung his head in defeat. “But I don’t want to wear shoes!” 

“You don’t like dogs?” Altair asked.

“I have no opinion of dogs. I simply don’t see the point in having an animal I won’t be home to take care of. If you want one—or two—that’s fine.” Malik stood next to him as the crowd wavered on the verge of attack. “As soon as we sit down, we will not be allowed to move until everyone has had a chance to talk to us.”

“Might as well get it over with,” Altair said. 

“Might as well,” Malik agreed. Then he stepped over to his seat and with the dramatic flair of royalty, sat down. Altair sat without pretense and a line was formed nearly instantly as a great flood of relatives flocked forward to say how pleased (and surprised) they were by the news. Malik leaned over (ever so slightly) toward Altair to say, “watch out for the women, they like to squeeze and kiss.” 

\--

Dinner (the very name a lie) went almost exactly how Malik said that it would. One of his Aunts, with a pretty face and none of his Mother’s singularly frightening presence, squeezed his arm with a whistle of approval, kissed him full on the mouth and slyly informed him that they should talk about ways to keep a man happy. She fawned over the flush on Altair’s face before she moved on with a wave of her fingers. 

Kadar—blue eyed and baby faced—stopped by the table near the end to drop an envelope between them with a pleased grin. It was a birthday card (of all thing) clearly purchased at a discount shop with a gift card to ‘Priscilla’s Love Shop’ inside of it. Malik stuck his tongue out at his brother who laughed. Then he said, “congratulations, really.” Specifically, to Altair, he said, “Desmond’s going to stay with me a few days.”

Desmond did show up, near the very end, and dropped two dollars and twelve cents into the debris at the front of the table. “Nobody said anything about gifts,” was his explanation. He looked impressive in a well-cut suit with a clean face and a well-fed glow to his cheeks. “Congratulations.”

But the night did not end until after the toasts that lauded Malik as some kind of antihero made entirely of spite and hellfire and offered equal condolences and encouragement to Altair. Malik laughed-and-smiled and frowned in time with the cadence of words and Altair leaned back against the chair and tried very hard not to be overwhelmed. The end, the very end, was a showy kiss with Malik’s warm hand on his cool face and a chorus of approving wolf-whistles from the audience.

Altair waited until they were out of the doors of the great room before he tightened his hand around Malik’s wrist and _ran_. It was a mad dash along the path he’d memorized on the way in, curving around corners and ducking out of the way of approaching servers. They crashed into the side doors they’d entered through and then out to the freedom of night and the sanctity of near privacy. 

Malik put an arm around him when they stuttered to a stop and kissed him in a way entirely different than the professional showmanship of before. It was a filthy promise in a quick-wet-kiss with a chasing grin cutting across his face. “Oh the things I am going to do to you,” he said all sweet-and-promising.

But first they had to stand and wait for the car that brought them.

\--

The next morning, Malik woke up alone (again) but found Altair sitting in the closet surrounded by the bags of things. He had piles of folded pants and shirts, socks and underwear all around him and more left in the bags. “Do you actually sleep?” Malik asked.

“Yes,” Altair said. He put another undershirt on the stack by his knee and shook the next one out. “You could have gotten anything from me, you know. I would have agreed to be your slave for the rest of our lives. You could have had me on my knees licking your shoes.”

“Saliva would have ruined the leather,” Malik said. He sat down just beyond the outer edge of bags. “I didn’t want any of those things, Altair. I don’t want anything from you that you don’t want to give.”

Altair set the folded shirt down and put his hand across it as the pile tipped slightly to the side. He looked at the massive closet around them, at all of the spaces filled with the useless piles of things Malik had not seen a purpose in discarding. “You have no idea what kind of things I have done. I can’t figure out if that’s because you don’t want to know, if you haven’t had time to think about what kind of person you’ve just brought into your family or if you haven’t asked because…you’re being polite.”

“I met you when you destroyed my phone as a random malicious act, you stabbed me in the neck with a syringe, you taped me to a chair and at one point you threatened to torture me. Your brother seems to believe this is the first time you’ve done anything of the sort and by your own admission you are not a drug dealer or a prostitute. I remember you saying that you were a professional pickpocket. What is the worst thing you’ve done,” Malik asked, “if it wasn’t this?”

Altair drew in a breath and let it out again. “This isn’t going to be easy for me,” he said after a moment.

“I know,” Malik said softly.

“I don’t want _stuff_.” He must have realized how vague and stupid that sounded because he frowned at himself and then said. “I don’t want you to just get me stuff. I’m not ungrateful for this,” he motioned at the bags and the clothes, “but I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t know what to do with any of this. This,” he motioned again at everything, “does not happen.”

“I can’t control what others do. My family is going to shower you with things for weeks, maybe months. They don’t know much about you but they know that wherever you came from, you had nothing and they are people who have had everything for a very long time, if not since birth. They are generous out of kindness and what seems extreme to you is only a small token to them. But I will do my best. After we get your bike. And possibly the rings my Mother will insist we choose.”

Altair just shook his head. “But not today?”

“No. All we have today is Kadar showing up to work on a press release. We have the whole week to do whatever we want.” Malik leaned back against the shelf behind him. “What do you want to do?”

“Eat,” Altair said. “I was waiting for you to get up and cook something. What about you?”

“Sex,’ Malik said, “but we can eat first.” He got to his feet and reached out a hand to help Altair to his feet. They picked their way out through the piles of things and managed it almost all the way to door of the bedroom before they were kissing again. “Or sex first,” Malik mumbled.

“Shut up, take your pants off,” Altair said back with a viciously-pleased-grin on his face. Malik kissed him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you are all lovely. than you for reading.


End file.
